


"^^fcB 


























PRESENTED BY 







HISTORY 



OF 



HANOVER COLLEGE 



BY 



A. Y. MOORE, D. D. 



( I 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE HOLLENBECK PRESS 
1900 







•HcxrvvcaHA- Lo'LL8=^=a=. 







J 



> 



PREFACE 



This brief history of Hanover College owes its exist- 
ence to Miss Drusilla L. Cravens. It was written at her 
f^ request, to take a place in another publication. She has 

' deemed it of sufficient importance in the interests of the 

College to publish it in this form. The writer desires to 
gratefully acknowledge the kindness of Miss C^'avens in 
giving his brief history this separate existence. He has 
endeavored to set forth the historical relation of the 
College to the planting and growth of the Presbyterian 
church in Indiana. He also wishes to acknowledge his 
great indebtedness to the manuscript history of Hanover 

College by Dr. Crowe. 

A. Y. Moore. 
Hanover J December 1, 1900. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

Scenery— Geological Condition — First Settlers — Williamson 
Dunn — Indian Warfare — Religious Revival— Rev. Wm. 
Robinson — Church Organization — Primitive School — Dr. 
Maxwell — Rev. Thomas C. Searle — The Hanover Church 
-Rev. John Finley Crowe— The Old Stone Church— The 
Presbytery of Salem — Committee on Education — The 
Synod of Indiana — Need of Education— Ministers— The 
Presbyterian Academy at Hanover — Another Revival — 
Charter Granted— Synod Adopts the Academy — Theolog- 
ical Department. 

CHAPTER II 

Dr. Matthews Takes Charge of Theological Department— J. 
W. Cunningham, Professor of Biblical Literature — The 
First Misfortune — Dr. Crowe Solicits Funds — Increase in 
the Faculty — Dr. Blythe Becomes President: — College 
Charter Granted — College Building Completed — Manual 
Training System — ^Hanover 1834 — Financial Embarrass- 
ment — Ecclesiastical War — An Appeal in the East — Tor- 
nado of 1837 — The Church to the Rescue — An Impostor. 

CHAPTER III 

Dr. McMasters — A Law Department — Faculty Changes — 
Theological Department Removed to New Albany — Fac- 
ulty Difficulties — Financial Distress — Debt Liquidated — 
Faculty Enlarged — Change of Location Agitated — Madi- 
son Proposition — University of Madison — College Charter 
Surrendered — Hanover Indignation and Gloom. 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV 

College Building Sold to Dr. Crowe — The Academy Revived — 
Discontent at Madison — Students Return to Hanover — The 
Philalatheans Return — Dr. Crowe Begins Reorganization 
— Professors Desert U. of M. for Hanover — Presbyteries of 
Madison and Crawfordsville Declare for Hanover — Synod 
of Southern Indiana Adopt Hanover College — Dr. Scovel 
Elected President —Synod of Northern Indiana Accepts 
Hanover — The Prosperous Condition of 1848 — Cholera 
Scourge of 1849 — Death of Dr. Scovel — Election of Thomas 
E. Thomas — Purchase of College Farm — Dr. Edwards 
Elected President — Completion of New Building — Plan for 
Endowment — Administration of Dr. Wood — of Dr. Archi- 
bald — of Dr. Heckman — Endowment of Mrs. Lapsley — The 
President's Home — Dr. Fisher — Present Prosperity. 



History of Hanover College 



CHAPTER I. 



Hanover College is on the Ohio river, six miles below 
Madison. It is on a high plateau, five hundred feet 
above the river, commanding an extensive view of the 
river and its rich valley. The location is one of exceed- 
ing beauty. It is also distinguished for its healthful- 
ness. The College is one of the oldest literary institu- 
tions of Indiana. It has large, substantial and thor- 
oughly equipped buildings. Its endowment supports its 
faculty, and its expenditures are kept within the limits 
of its income. Between eight and nine hundred stu- 
dents, having completed its courses of study, have gradu- 
ated from it. Between four and five thousand students 
have taken these courses of study in part. Its roll of 
honor includes many eminent men in church and state 
and in educational and scientific work. While one of 
the earliest institutions in the State, it is young and 
vigorous and growing, seeking earnestly with bright 
prospects for larger endowment, increased equipment 
and greater efficiency in what has ever been its aim and 
endeavor, thorough work. 

IS^othing could be more fascinating, if it were possible 
to give it, than the narrative of the geological and nat- 



8 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

ural history of the region where the College is located. 
Old Silurian rocks, far antedating the Devonian rocks 
of the falls at Louisville, and still further antedating 
the sandstones of the Evansville region, come to the sur- 
face and in immense strata rise several hundred feet in 
thickness above the waters of the Ohio and the valley 
through which they flow. Upon these rocks, covered 
with soil and stretching for miles back into the country 
with comparatively level surface, grew forests of gigantic 
trees when the region was first explored by the white 
man. And through these strata, by mighty erosive 
forces, whose energies figures can not tabulate, the bed 
of the river and its valley were in those far-away geologic 
ages scooped out. Opening into the valley of the river 
are wild and weird fissures and grand canyons running 
back into the country, making picturesque valleys, wild 
ravines, enchanting glens, beautiful water falls and 
great precipices. From College Point, with its exten- 
sive and charming view for many miles down the Ohio- 
through the alternations of the seasons of spring, sum- 
mer, fall and winter, there is an ever-changing panorama 
of beauty and glory. Through the countless centuries 
of geologic time these wonder-scenes of creative power 
and art grew. Through them LaSalle passed in his 
voyage down the Ohio in 1685, the first white man that 
upon its current penetrated to the heart of the continent. 
We can only surmise what his thoughts might have been 
as he beheld the vast extent and the undeveloped re- 
sources of the new world opened to him. 

But our narrative, which is of persons and events con- 
nected with the origin, growth, struggles and permanent 



HISTORY or HAJ^OVER COLLEGE. 9 

establishment of Hanover College, somewhat like Dar- 
win's survival of the fittest, begins within a very modern 
period, although it may be early in the history of 
Indiana. We begin with the appearance of the land- 
hunter in the region. It was shortly after the extinc- 
tion of the Indian title to this part of the country by 
purchase of the United States government and its survey 
and the opening of a land office at Jeffersonville for its 
sale. The sound of the steamboat had not yet been 
heard on the Ohio. The Indian still roamed through 
the forests, seeking game. "Then occasionally might be 
seen men on horseback, usually two or three together^, 
winding their way through the deeply shaded forests, 
turning aside sometimes to avoid impenetrable thickets, 
keeping together for company and mutual protection. 
They were armed with old-fashioned flint-loeked rifles, 
for they might have an opportunity to shoot a deer or 
bear, or possibly they might find their rifles convenient 
for pacifying lurking, treacherous Indians. They were 
land-hunters, that is, men from Kentucky or elsewhere^ 
seeking homes in this great wilderness. Such a party 
of land-hunters,^' continues Greneral Dunn, "were in this 
region a little while after a narrow strip of land had 
been purchased from the Indians, recently surveyed and 
offered for sale by the Dnited States government. They 
examined the tract of land upon which afterward Han- 
over was established, as well as other tracts in the neigh- 
borhood. One of them remained and inspected with 
great care the soil, the timber, the stones, the springs, 
the brooks, on this particular spot. He found that there 
was not an acre of it that was not fit for cultivation; 



10 HISTORY OF HAJTOVER COLLEGE. 

that it was well watered on every side. There was not a 
better tract for farming purposes in all the neighbor- 
hood. This land-hunter^ a young, vigorous, determined- 
looking man, made careful examination and note of sur- 
veyors' marks on the trees, so as to be sure of his tract, 
and then rode away. A day or two afterjvards he was 
at Jeffersonville at the land office, and made purchase of 
the land. This land-hunter was Williamson Dunn, of 
Mercer county, Kentucky. This land was purchased 
November 28, 1808. In the fall of the next year, 1809, 
he came with his wife and two little boys to this land, 
and built a cabin for a home for himself and family. 
This was the beginning of the settlement of the region. 
Settlers came in rapidly, and the stroke of the ax and 
the sound of falling trees, the blazing of logs and the 
burning of brush-heaps, were sights and sounds that 
became familiar. These early settlers were mostly 
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who, or their ancestors, had 
emigrated from the north of Ireland to Virginia, thence 
to Kentucky, and thence to these new homes." 

After two years of incoming of new settlers, war with 
the Indians began. The battle of Tippecanoe was 
fought November 7, 1811. War with England was de- 
clared June 18, 1812. The Indians became dangerous 
neighbors. In the fall of 1812, September 3, the terri- 
ble destruction of the Pigeon Eoost settlement in Scott 
county occurred. By an unexpected attack of Indians, 
three white men, five women and sixteen children were 
mercilessly massacred. This was only eighteen miles 
from the settlement of these Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. 
Though militia from Clarke and Jefferson counties and 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 11 

volunteers that came from Kentucky, forming an armed 
force of three hundred and fifty men, pursued the mur- 
derous Indians, they escaped. But the new settlements 
were filled with alarm. Block-houses were built and 
stockades constructed, in which families were gathered 
for protection, and men labored with guns and ammuni- 
tion at hand and butcher-knives in their girdles. For 
the protection of the settlers Congress passed an act for 
raising companies of mounted troops called Eangers. 
These troops were to scout along the frontier to prevent 
incursions of marauding murderous bands of Indians. 
Williamson Dunn raised and was made captain of one of 
these companies. It was the best means of protecting 
their families. This company was absent about a year, 
and was mustered out of service at Vincennes in March, 
1814. In the meantime, because of the victories of the 
American soldiers and the severe defeats suffered by the 
Indians, all danger from them ceased, and new settlers 
again began to appear. With the establishment of peace 
early in 1815, they came in largely increased numbers. 

But not simply for land and homes had these Scotch- 
Irish settlers sought the new country. The men and 
women had had religious training, and doubtless many 
of them were Christian men and women. The great 
revival of 1800 and of subsequent jesiTS in Kentucky 
was widespread and deep and pervasive in its influence. 
The whole population of the State was more or less 
stirred and affected by it. Its quickening and uplifting 
power extended to other and new States, and to other 
people and generations. 

Captain Dunn, upon his return home after being 



12 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

mustered out of the United States service^, wished to be 
enrolled as a soldier of Christ, and he went to Charles- 
town, twenty-four miles from home, to unite with a 
Presbyterian church that had been organized there two 
years before, in 1812. One other Presbyterian church 
there was in the Territory of Indiana at this time. It 
was the Indiana Church, near Vincennes, and had been 
organized in 1806. This first Presbyterian church in 
the Territory had a minister resident at Vincennes, the 
only Presbyterian minister resident in the Territory at 
this time. It was the Kev. Samuel Thornton Scott. 
He had as early as 1802, it is said, been a teacher and 
Christian worker in and about Vincennes, before his- 
educational course was completed, and before his licen- 
sure and ordination as a minister. He had, after his 
licensure and ordination, labored as a missionary in and 
about Vincennes for several months, in 1806 and 1807 
each, and in the fall of 1808 he came with his family 
and became the resident minister of the Indiana Church, 
and so continued until his death, in 1827. Perhaps some 
intercourse of Captain Dunn with this Presbyterian 
minister at Vincennes, who, like himself, was from Ken- 
tucky, may have had something to do with his going to- 
Charlestown to unite with the Presbyterian church. 

A Presbyterian minister, the Kev. William Kobinson, 
came to Madison and took up his abode there, becomings 
the second resident Presbyterian minister in the State. 
He taught school in Madison and preached, and in the 
summer of 1815 organized a Presbyterian church, with 
fifteen or twenty members. Mr. Eobinson preached to 
this church until the fall of 1817. He then removed ta 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 13 

Bethlehem, in Clarke count}', where he died in the spring 
of 1827. 

About the time the Presbyterian chnrch at Madison 
was organized, another Presbyterian minister came into 
the Territory and settled within three or fonr miles of 
Mr. Dnnn. It was a minister of the straightest of the 
sects of the Presbyterians, an Associate or Seceder min- 
ister. It was the Eev. Andrew Fulton. 

In 1810 George Shannon, Sr., James Anderson and 
other members of the Associate church settled in Jeffer- 
son county. The}^ had been members of the Associate 
church in Kentucky. Seeking deliverance for them- 
selves and their families from the baleful influence of 
slavery, some had gone several years before to Ohio, but 
now came to Indiana, with others direct from Kentuck}^ 
Some time in the year 1812 they had been organized into 
a church, and had occasional preaching and ministration 
of the sacraments by the ministers of the Associate Pres- 
bytery of Kentucky. In October, 1815, a call for the 
settlement of the Eev. Andrew Fulton as their pastor 
was made and accepted, and Mr. Fulton soon after, with 
his famih", moved from Kentuck}^ and established his 
home among them. The members of his church were 
very much scattered, some living twenty miles away in 
the north part of the county. A church building thirty 
by forty feet on the ground, and with a ceiling twelve 
feet high, was erected in 1816. It was simple and rude 
in its structure and in its furnishing, but in these re- 
spects was of like character with the houses of the people. 
xA.fter three years of labor, this first pastor of this church 



14 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

died, September 10^ 1818, leaving precious memories and 
abundant frnits of his labors. In 1821 another pastor, 
the Rev. Andrew Isaacs, was settled over the church. 

Other Presbyterian and Congregational ministers, on 
missionary tours through the State, had been visiting 
and preaching in Jefferson county during the year. In 
1817 the Rev. ^N'athan B. Derrow, from the Western 
Reserve, Ohio, visited Jefferson county and preached in 
Judge Dunnes neighborhood. Our land-hunter and cap- 
tain of Rangers had now become judge. Mr. Derrow 
had organized a Presbyterian church at Rising Sun in 
1816; and in 1817, about the time of his visit at Judge 
Dunnes, organized the Graham Presbyterian Church in 
Jennings county, seventeen miles from Judge Dunnes, 
with seventeen members. In 1818 the Rev. Isaac Reed 
and the Rev. Orin Fowler met at Judge Dunn's. They 
were both from ISTew England. They had been ac- 
quainted in the East as students of divinity, and had 
both been licensed by the same Association. Mr. Reed 
had been preaching for several months in Kentucky, and 
had now come over into Indiana. He had preached at 
Madison, and was on his way to Xew i^lbany. It was 
Thursda}^, August 13, 1818, that Messrs. Reed and 
Fowler met at Judge Dunn's. Towards evening Mr. 
Reed preached. On Sabbath Mr. Fowler preached in 
Judge Dunn's barn. On the Friday before, the record 
in Mr. Fowler's diary is '^Visited the school under the 
care of Mr. Maxwell, which is large and interesting." 
The school-house had been built, not as a public school, 
but as a private school. We have a pen picture of the 
school-house. It was built of split logs put up edge- 



HISTOKY OF HAXOVER COLLEGE. 15 

wise; the floor was of puncheons; the windows were 
made by cutting out the parts of two logs next to and 
parallel to each other^ and instead of glass^ greased paper 
was used. There was a large chimney at each end of 
the house, built of stone, sticks and clay. Long in- 
clined boards along the side and end of the school-house 
were fixed for those who were worrying with pot-hooks 
and other exercises in writing. All the benches were 
narrow, hard and without backs.^^ 

The school was under the care of Dr. Maxwell, doubt- 
less not taught by him. 

Dr. David H. Maxwell was a brother-in-law of Judge 
Dunn. When his company of Eangers had been raised 
for active service in the Indian war, Dr. Maxwell had 
enlisted as a private. This enlistment was upon the 
written petition of all the members of the company that 
he would go with them as their surgeon, they promising 
him a stipulated compensation for his services as sur- 
geon. Dr. Maxwell was a member from Jefferson 
county of the Convention of 1816, which framed the 
Constitution with which Indiana, in 1816, was admitted 
as a State into the Federal Union. He was the mover 
in the Convention of the clause in the Constitution 
which prohibited slaver}^ for the introduction of which 
into the new State strong and persistent efforts had been 
made. In the spring of 1819 Dr. Maxwell moved to 
Bloomington, and was, with his wife, among the twelve 
members organized into the Presbyterian Church of 
Bloomington by the Eev. Isaac Eeed, September 26, 
1819. After moving to Bloomington, which in 1818 
had been made the county-seat of the newly organized 



'' «^STOHT OP HA.>.OVER COLLEGE. 

eoimtj- of Monroe Dr l\r=, „ , 

^ngton, and was through all ht I f '"'" '* 2^°°"^- 

f^ the adn.ini.trat:on of this n ?/;'''^ '®'^^''°* ^^'^ 
tered bj the Legislature in 1S90°°' "■'^^=^' =h"- 
class of students, ten [n nult ' "";^'"^'' '" "« ^-t 
ana College in 1827 and C' fr '''''' ^'''^'^ I^di- 

Before Mr. Fo'tTeftlt"" ^'""'^''"'^ '^ ^838. 
i" Shelby township, so^e ten Jf '°™*^ "^"^ ^^-^'^^'^^d 
«on, October 17, 18 g the iff ""'^^^ ""^heast of Mad- 
teen n^embers. Oeto'ber J^"^ ^J^^^^' -"^ -ven- 
Lexington Church in Scott .n, ,' .'^^ organized the 
bers, some ten miles luh!f/; ^'* ^''^^"te^" "^em- 
^/n .ul„ ,8,, ^hri'Tlttr?^^,^""'^'^- 
Madison. He was born in Bow^ \r ^T^' '''^' *« 
nan- 15, 1787, graduated at n ^' ^^^'^'^chusetts, Jan- 
-as ordained bf the P e^bt '^°"'^ ^""^^'^ ^^^ 1812, 
^> 1.S15, and Js paster S'stV' ^^«"'°- ^ecembe 
land, until 1817 InlST^ fk^ensburg Church, Mary- 
Logic in Dartmouth Co leie brt'de^'f 1 '1™'^^^°^ °^ 
for missionary work and caS tn \"^ ^^^ P"^'«o" 
the auspices of Young Me^r,^ '"''^^"^ '^ 1819, nnder 

York City. A„gu.t^5 /81 T"^'^^'^*^'°^^^- 
communion service at l\r».r , ' ''""^sted at a 

Clelland, of Kentud; a'd 7^ "" ^^^'- Thomas 
-ho in the month of Au! 't ^ l^I' '"'''' ''■ ^-%' 
stalled Presbyterian pa t r iu '.''°'"^'^ *« ^^t ^^- 
^'talled by the Presbvterv of n ""' '''^^""^"^^ ^n- 

P^sgah Church, in « rte c! r^''^"' '^^ P^^^°^ "f the 
Chnrch, in Scott coun v b! ?'; 'f °^ ^^^ Lexington 



HISTORY OF HAXOVER COLLEGE. 17 

for missionary work in the new fields opening in the 
new settlements made in the State. At this communion 
service at Madison thirteen members were added to the 
church;, making the total membership of the church 
thirty-three. But a large part of these members were 
from the Scotch-Irish settlers in the neighborhood of 
Hanover. They subscribed two hundred dollars, half 
the salary of Mr. Searle, and were to have preaching 
half the time in their neighborhood. The ^th of March, 
1820, Mr. Searle organized these members and other 
persons that united with them into a church, which was 
called Hanover in compliment to Mr. Searle's wife, who 
came from Hanover, Xew Hampshire, the seat of Dart- 
mouth College. From this affectionate regard for their 
minister's wife came the name of the church, the college 
and the village. The postoffice, which came in 1830, 
was called South Hanover, because there was a post- 
office in Shelby county by the name of Hanover. In 
time this postoffice in Shelby county became extinct, and 
the postoffice of South Hanover in Jefferson county be- 
came Hanover. August 13, 1820, Mr. Searle was in- 
stalled by the Presbytery of Louisville pastor of the 
]\Iadison and Hanover churches. Before the installa- 
tion of Mr. Searle the erection of a church building at 
Hano^^er had been projected. A plot of ground donated 
for it by Williamson Dunn was accepted. Early in 
1821 subscriptions were made for the building. The 
subscriptions vrere in produce or material for building, 
a very small amount of money. Some subscriptions 
were for fifty bushels of wheat on demand; some were 
for several hundred pounds of pork in the following 



18 HISTORY OF HANOVEE COLLEGE. 

December; some were in shingles, to be delivered when 
needed; others for hauling; others for smith work. But 
all difficulties were overcome by four members of the 
church, George Logan, Benjamin Smyth, Eobert Sym- 
ington and Jesse Dickerson, binding themselves to each 
other for one equal part of what might be lacking on the 
subscription for erecting a house of worship so far as to 
have said house enclosed. Benjamin Sm3i^th, Eobert 
Symington and George Logan were authorized to let the 
contract for the building of said house ; the house was to 
be of stone and forty feet square. The fifteenth day of 
May, 1821, was fixed for letting the contract. 

Within a few months after the beginning of this en- 
terprise the pastor, under a severe attack of the fever 
prevalent in the summer and fall in the new country, 
passed away in death. He died October 15, 1821, at the 
age of thirty-three. His death was a sad bereavement 
to the Madison and Hanover churches. Mr. Dickey, in 
his Brief History, says of Mr. Searle : "He was a man 
of superior talents, of polished manners, and of a most 
affectionate disposition. And what was perhaps of more 
importance to the infant church of Indiana, he was a 
very zealous, popular and successful minister of the New 
Testament. He was a man greatly beloved.^^ He was 
also a man of wide public influence. At the time of his 
death he was on the committee which, under appoint- 
ment of the State Legislature, framed the first and 
fundamental law of the common-school system of the 
State. Nearly two years elapsed before a successor was 
found for the church of Hanover. The Rev. John M. 
Dickey, of the Pisgah and New Lexington churches, and 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 19 

the Eev. W. W. Marton, of the Salem and Livonia 
churches, visited occasionally the church, preached to its 
congregation, moderated its session, and received mem- 
bers into it. 

It was also visited by another missionary from the 
East, the Eev. David C. Proctor. He was a graduate of 
Dartmouth College and Andover Theological Seminary. 
He came West late in the fall of 1821, passed through 
the State, and organized the Wabash Church in Edwards 
county, Illinois, March 5, 1822, with five members. In 
May, 1822, he was back in Indianapolis. The capital of 
the State had been located by commissioners appointed 
for the purpose, and by approval of their report by the 
Legislature, January 6, 1821, was fixed, and at the sug- 
gestion of Hon. Jeremiah Sullivan, of Madison, was 
named Indianapolis. At the time of Mr. Proctor's com- 
ing to Indianapolis there were some earnest Presby- 
terians there. Dr. Isaac Coe, James M. Ray and James 
Blake, men that afterwards became eminent and influ- 
ential in the history of the Presbyterian church in In- 
diana, as well as in the public affairs of the State. It 
was not until July o, 1823, that the Indianapolis church 
was organized by Mr. Proctor and Rev. Isaac Reed, with 
fifteen members. It was doubtless during the summer 
of 1822 that Mr. Proctor visited Hanover. A horseback 
ride of ninety miles from Indianapolis to Hanover was 
nothing for the pioneer missionaries of the State. Mr. 
Proctor, preaching three-fourths of his time at Indian- 
apolis, also supplied the pulpit of the recently organized 
church of Bloomington one-fourth of his time, making 
his journey of sixty miles between his two preaching 



20 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

points over a road, if such it could be called, that was 
only a blazed way for the greater part of the distance 
through a vast unbroken forest. 

The 16th of January, 1823, at a congregational meet- 
ing of the Hanover Church, moderated by the Eev. John 
M. Dickey, a call was made for the pastoral labors of the 
Eev. John Finley Crowe, of Shelbyville, Kentucky. 
The call was accepted, and in the following May Mr. 
Crowe moved with his family to Hanover. August 13, 
1823, he was installed, the. Eev. Isaac Eeed and the Eev. 
John M. Dickey officiating for that purpose by appoint- 
ment of Louisville Presbytery. In the meantime the 
stone church, as it was called, had been completed. Mr. 
Crowe speaks of it as a building that did not shame the 
times. The walls were not high; the roof had a low 
pitch, and was finished without cornice or ornament of 
any kind. There were two large windows on the east, 
west and north sides each, and two doors on the south 
side. The appearance of the building as you approached 
it from the east or north was not satisfactory. But 
coming from the south or the west, the hill on which it 
stood gave it a good elevation and favorable aspect. The 
interior was commodious and well lighted. The walls 
were plastered up to the square, and then half way up 
the rafters and across. This vaulted form increased the 
spacious appearance, and made "it an easy auditorium 
for speaker and hearer. The church was seated with 
peg benches. On these, unsupported by any back or 
rest, the congregation sat in their services of public wor- 
ship until xVpril 15, 1829, when the church was fur- 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 21 

nished with pews^ at which time the practice of families 
sitting together was adopted. 

Mr. Crowe, when he came to Hanover, was about 
thirty-six years of age. The following sketch of his life 
until his removal to Hanover was written by his daugh- 
ter, Mrs. S. C. Garritt: "He was born June 16, 1787, 
in a frontier settlement of North Carolina, which, in 
the division of States, fell within the limits of Green 
county, Tennessee. In 1802 his parents, with a num- 
ber of families, removed west of the Mississippi, forming 
a village, which from the beauty of its situation they 
called Bellevue, now in Washington county, Missouri. 
Here he taught the neighborhood school, but for years 
heard no sermon or public prayer. Through the in- 
coming of three ruling elders from the church of Dr. 
James Hall, of North Carolina, his attention to religion 
was aroused, and later, through the preaching of a 
Methodist minister, Rev. Mr. Ward, he was brought 
under powerful conviction for sin, which resulted in a 
complete change of life. He soon decided to study for 
the ministry, and in April, 1809, started for Danville, 
Kentucky, to enter the classical school of Dr. Priestly. 
But Dr. Priestly had just gone with his school to Nash- 
ville, Tennessee. For a year varied dilhculties wrecked 
his hopes, but through providential leading and the wise 
advice of the Eev. Samuel Finley, with whom he studied 
privately his second year, he had excellent literary and 
social advantages. He then spent two years in Transyl- 
vania University, completing his course in 1813. He 
also began his theological studies under Rev. Dr. Robert 
Bishop. 



22 HISTOEY OF HAXOVER COLLEGE. 

"In Msij, 1814, having been ordained an elder in the 
Pisgah Chnreh, the pastoral charge of his friend and 
patron, Dr. James Bh^the, he was sent as a delegate from 
West Lexington Presb3^ter3^ to the General Assembly, 
meeting, as it was accustomed to then, at Philadelphia^ 
At the close of the Assembh^ he went to Princeton, Xew 
Jersey, studied through the summer, and entered the 
second class in the Theological Seminary. He was 
licensed by the West Lexington Presbytery in 1815, and 
went to Shelb3^Yille, Kentuck}^, to take charge of the 
Academy. He was for a time associated with Rev. 
Archibald Cameron in a sort of bishopric of the Shelby 
county Presbyterian churches; later was the happy pas- 
tor of two churches, Fox Run and Bull Skin, near Shel- 
byville. 

"But from the time of his conversion he had doubted 
the righteousness of slavery, and on entering the minis- 
try longed to ameliorate the condition of the slave. To 
this end he successfully attempted Sunday-school work 
for slaves, who had permission from their masters to 
attend, and later afternoon preaching services for them. 
In numbers and interest these services were successful, 
but in each case the buildings in which to hold them 
were denied them. An effort to educate public senti- 
ment through the press then seemed the only way open 
to him. Being deeply interested in the Foreign Mis- 
sionary Movement then developing, he finally decided 
to write of these live questions in a monthly paper to be 
called the Abolition Intelligencer and Missionary Mag- 
azine. The first number was issued in May, 1812. The 
abolitionism was mild. He advocated the enactmeni of 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 23 

laws that would permit such instruction of slaves as 
would lit them for self-government under gradual eman- 
cipation, a movement which was then expected to be 
speedily established. But the theme was distasteful. 
It immediately brought out protests, then warnings, at 
last threats, should he continue its publication. The 
prospects of loss of friends and property and congrega- 
tions caused great distress of mind and commitment of 
the case to God for direction, which resulted in his be- 
coming satisfied that the deplorable condition of two 
millions of enslaved Africans called for exertion and 
sacrifice. Peace and comfort returned to him under the 
fixed determination in the strength of divine grace to go 
forward. This he did for twelve months ; but, unlike 
Garrison, who had '^a, dauntless spirit and a press,^ he 
had no press. Then the lack of subscriptions to share 
the expense, together with the call of the church at Han- 
over, were to him the voice of God calling away. Ee- 
moving to Hanover, the following entry was made in his 
diary : ^By the good hand of God upon me, have I been 
preserved through dangers, and led, as I trust, by a wise 
and holy Providence, to Hanover, Indiana, the land of 
civil and religious liberty.^ His interest in the cause 
did not cease with removal. Voice and a pen were freely 
used." 

In September, 1823, the Presbytery of Louisville, in 
session at Charlestown, petitioned the Synod of Ken- 
tucky to erect a new Presbytery north of the Ohio river, 
to be called the Presbytery of Salem. The Synod in its 
session in October granted the petition, and formed the 
Presbytery of Salem. It was bounded on the east by a 



24 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE, 

line running due north from the mouth of the Kentucky- 
river. Its boundar}^ on the west, fixed a 3'ear later, was 
a line running due north from the mouth of Green river, 
twenty miles, then a line from that point running north- 
westerly to the mouth of White river. From thence a 
line running due west indefinitely was its boundary on 
the south. On the north no boundaries were fixed. 
Thus the Presbytery embraced the most of both Indiana 
and Illinois. Its first meeting was at Salem, Indiana, 
April 1, 1821. There were six ministers present, and 
one was absent. The number of elders present was 
thirteen. The organization of the Presbytery was im- 
portant, as its ministers and" elders had oversight of the 
whole field embraced within their boundaries, and were 
brought in their discussions and counsels into unity of 
plan and action for the promotion of the religious in- 
terests of the rapidly growing and developing country 
for which they were laboring. At this first meeting of 
the Presbytery a committee was appointed to devise ways 
and means for the education of poor and pious youth 
for the ministry. The committee were to report at the 
next spring meeting, having a year for their work. The 
committee were Eev. John Finley Crowe, Eev. John M. 
Dickey, Elder Lemuel Ford, of Charlestown, Elder Alex- 
ander Walker, of Pisgah Church, and Elder William 
Eeed, of Hanover. The great need of the Presbyterian 
church and of the country was ministers of the gospel. 
Of the ministers of Salem Presbytery, John Todd had 
come from Virginia to Kentucky in 1806, the Eev. Isaac 
Eeed had come from New England to Kentuck}^ in 1817, 
the other members of the Presbytery had received their 



HISTOEY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 25 

classical and theological training principally in the 
West, and were what would be called Western men. All 
felt that to supply the great religious necessities of the 
field, ministers would have to be raised up in the West 
and from among the churches of the West. The action 
of the Presbytery in the appointment of this committee 
to devise ways and means for the education of poor and 
pious young men for the work of the ministry was 
doubtless the initial action that led on through the con- 
tinuity of providential events to the origin and establish- 
ment of Hanover College, likewise of Indiana Theolog- 
ical Seminary, and the seminaries that grew out of it, 
^ew Alban}^, and McCormick at Chicago. 

At the fall meeting of the Presbytery at Charlestown, 
further action in educational work was taken. The Pres- 
bytery formed itself into an educational society, accord- 
ing to a plan recommended b}^ its Committee on Educa- 
tion. There is no record in the minutes of the Presby- 
tery of this plan, or of the proceedings of the Presbytery 
as an educational society. From another source we gain 
a knowledge of their proceedings. But this educational 
work is connected with the growth of the churches, and 
we note this growth. The Presbytery, before the fall 
meeting at Charlestown, had met August 10, 1824, at 
Madison, for the purpose of receiving and ordaining Mr. 
Joseph Trimble, a licentiate of the Presbytery of Car- 
lisle. Mr. Trimble was also to be installed as pastor of 
the church at Madison. But when the Presbytery met 
he was very sick with fever prevalent in the summer and 
fall through the country at that early day. The cer- 
tificate of Mr. Trimble's dismission to the Presbytery 



26 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

was received, and he was taken into the Presbytery as a 
licentiate. The Presbytery then adjourned. On the 
following day Mr. Trimble died. He was a graduate of 
Jefferson College, and had studied theology at Princeton 
Seminary. He was twenty-eight years of age at the 
time of his death. October 9, 1824, Tilly H. Brown 
was licensed by the Presbytery at its stated meeting at 
Charlestown. At this meeting at Charlestown the 
church of Indianapolis presented a call for the minis- 
terial labors of Eev. Oeorge Bush. Mr. Bush not hav- 
ing received his letter of dismission from the Presbj^tery 
of New York, the Presbytery could take no action. 
March 4, 1825, the Presbytery met in a called meeting at 
Indianapolis for the purpose of receiving and ordaining 
Mr. Bush and installing him as pastor of the church at 
IndianapolivS, and also to receive Mr. Baynard R. Hall, 
a licentiate of the Presbytery of Philadelphia. They 
were received, and the next day, March 5, Mr. Bush was 
ordained and installed, Mr. Crowe preaching the ser- 
mon, Mr. Dickey giving the charge to the pastor, and 
Rev. Isaac Reed the charge to the people. The spring 
meeting of the Presbytery was at Washington, Daviess 
county, April 5. Alexander Williamson, a licentiate of 
Carlisle Presbytery, was received, and also Mr. Stephen 
Bliss, a licentiate of Hopkinton Association of JSTew 
Hampshire. The Presbytery adjourned on the 9th to 
meet three days after at Bloomington for the ordination 
of Bavnard R. Hall. The ordination was in the State 
Seminary, of which j\Ir. Hall was the first teacher. He 
was also the minister of the Presb3^terian church of 
Bloomington. The Presbytery again met on adjourn- 



HISTORY OF HAXOYER COLLEGE. 27 

ment the 3d of June and ordained Mr. Williamson. 
Again the Presbytery met nj^on its adjournment, June 
24:, at Bethlehem, for the ordination and installation of 
Mr. Brown, whom they had licensed eight months be- 
fore. Again the Presbytery met upon its adjournment 
at Vincennes and installed Mr. Scott pastor of the In- 
diana Church, to which he had been ministering for sev- 
enteen years. It also ordained at this time Stephen 
Bliss, who was preaching to the Wabash Church in 
Illinois. After these numerous meetings, in places re- 
mote from each other, with horseback riding the only 
mode of transit, the Presbytery met in its regular fall 
meeting at the Pisgah Church, in Clarke county, October 
7. At this meeting of the Presbytery the Rev. John T. 
Hamilton was received from the Muhlenberg Presbytery. 
The Presbytery also received as a licentiate from Colum- 
bia Presbytery, James H. Johnston, and when it ad- 
journed, it adjourned to meet at Madison on the third 
Wednesday of October for the ordination of Mr. John- 
ston and his installation as j^astor of the Madison 
Church. 

Important action was taken at this meeting looking to 
the enlargement of the church and the erection of a new 
Synod. A number of new members had been received 
into the Presbytery, and a number of new churches had 
been organized. There were now about fifty in the 
Presbytery. It was determined to ask the Synod of 
Kentucky, soon to meet, to divide Salem Presbytery into 
three, the Presbyteries of Madison, Salem and Wabash. 
The petition was granted, and the General Assembly of 
the Presbyterian Church, in its sessions the next May, 
formed these Presbyteries, together with the Presbytery 



28 HISTORY OP HANOVER COLLEGE. 

of Missouri, into a new Synod, to be called tiie Synod of 
Indiana, and authorized the meeting and organization 
of the Synod at Yincennes, Wednesday, the 18th day of 
October, 1826. 

But at this fall meeting of the Presbytery at Pisgah 
other matters of interest claimed the attention of the 
Presbytery. A committee was appointed to cooperate 
with the General Assembly in locating the Western 
Theological Seminary, which it had deemed necessary to 
supplement the work of Princeton Seminary in provid- 
ing ministers for the rapidly growing West. The Pres- 
bytery hoped to induce the iVssembly to locate the Sem- 
inary as far west as Charlestown. The committee con- 
sisted of Messrs. Crowe, Dickey, Hamilton and Brown. 
The appointment of the committee made evident the 
deep interest of the Presbytery in the work of securing 
ministers of the gospel for the widening field of the 
West. Another record of the Presbytery, manifesting 
deep interest in this work and anxious solicitude for it, 
was a tender tribute paid to Rev. John Young, who had 
spent a year in missionary labors within the widely ex- 
tended bounds of the Presbytery. He had been at the 
meeting of the Presbytery at Yincennes in August. He 
was taken sick with the prevalent fever of the new coun- 
try before the Presbytery adjourned, and shortly after- 
wards died. He had been very useful in his ministrv, 
and his loss was deeply felt. He was a graduate of 
Union College, and had studied theology at Princeton. 
He was a licentiate of New Brunswick Presbytery. He 
and Mr. Johnston were classmates in the Seminary at 
Princeton, and they came to the West together in the 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 29 

fall of 1824, reaching Madison the 9th of December. 
Mr. Johnston was to take charge of the Madison Church, 
but before doing so he spent three months in missionary 
labor all over the southern part of the State, traveling 
about five hundred miles and preaching about fifty 
times before his return to Madison. Mr. Young 
preached for him at Madison during eight weeks of his 
absence. After a few weeks' labor along the White 
river in the vicinity of Indianapolis, he went to the 
Wabash, and most of his labors were given to Paris, in 
Edgar county, Illinois, and to N'ew Hope, whose mem- 
bers were partly in Clark county, Illinois, and Sullivan 
count}^, Indiana. 

The death of Mr. Searle had been followed by the 
death of Ezra H. Day, a minister beloved, who came to 
the church of iSTew Albany in ISTovember, 1822. The 
prevalent bilious fever of the new country for new- 
comers terminated his life September 22, 1823. Then 
followed the death of Trimble at Madison in August, 
1824. And now the death of Young, in August, 1825, 
deeply moved the Presbytery, and they appointed a day 
of humiliation, fasting and prayer, that these afflictive 
dispensations of Divine Providence might be sanctified 
to them and their churches. 

Eecalling the facts of the constitution of the Presby- 
tery into an educational society, and of the appointment 
of a committee to form a plan and devise ways and 
means to aid poor and pious young men into the min- 
istry' ; remembering the appointment of the committee 
to cooperate with the General Assembly in its establish- 
ment of a Western Theological Seminary, and recalling 



30 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

this tender and solemn feeling pervading the Presbytery 
because of the frequent deaths of young and prominent 
ministers, we understand what Mr. Crowe reports in 
after years as transacted at this Presbytery in connec-. 
tion with work for securing an educated ministry. In 
a manuscript history, written by Dr. Crowe towards the 
end of his life, he wrote : "The fewness of the laborers 
and the immensity of the harvest, together with the loud 
and importunate Macedonian cry which came from every 
part of the land, urged upon the Presbytery the ques- 
tion. What can be done to increase the number of the 
laborers ? Again and again,'' he says, "had the General 
Assembly been applied to for aid ; but that venerable 
body had not been able to do anything more than to send 
out occasionally such young. men as had intimated their 
willingness to labor a few months as missionaries in the 
West. Very few of their missionaries, however, seemed 
disposed to encounter the trials and privations of a set- 
tlement in the wilderness. And of those who consented 
to remain, four, within two or three years, fell victims 
to the acclimating fever. Though discouraged by these 
facts, the Presbytery had still to meet the question, 
What can be done for the multitudes ready to perish, 
with eyes directed to us for aid? We had long been 
praying the Lord of the harvest to send more laborers, 
but now felt we were called upon to act. The only 
plan which seemed to promise, with God's blessing, a 
competent supply for the extended and constantly ex- 
tending harvest was to raise them up upon the ground." 
At this fall meeting of the Presbytery in 1825 it was 
determined to establish a Presbyterian Academy, and a 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 31 

committee was appointed to devise a plan and select a 
place. This committee, for various reasons, fixed upon 
Hanover as the place of the Academy, and the manual 
labor system as the plan. 

The first meeting of Madison Presbytery was at Han- 
over, April 6, 1826. There vrere four ministers. All 
were present — William Eobinson, John M. Dickey, John 
Finley Crowe, James H. Johnston. Seven elders were 
present. The Presbytery adopted the following order 
on education : "Presbytery shall use vigorous efforts to 
educate poor and pious youth of promising talent for the 
gospel ministry; and they shall earnestly request the 
members of the churches under their care, if they are 
acquainted with any such youth, to encourage and assist 
them, and make them known to Presbytery.^^ 

Mr. Crowe, in his manuscript history, writes : "As 
the contemplated academy was to be located within the 
bounds of Madison Presbytery, that body at their first 
meeting took action on the subject, adopted the report 
of the committee which had been appointed by the Salem 
Presbytery, and appointed a committee to secure a 
teacher. This was doubtless done, as the action of the 
Salem Presbytery had been, by the Presbytery as an 
educational society. At the fall meeting of the Presby- 
tery at the Jefferson Church a committee was appointed 
to draft a constitution for the Presbytery as an educa- 
tion society. At this fall meeting of the Presbytery, as 
the committee had been unable to procure a teacher for 
the projected academy, Mr. Crowe was urged to organize 
the school and take charge of it until it might grow into 
sufficient importance to justify the employment of a 



32 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

competent teacher. Convinced that the interests of the 
church demanded a school, and that the interests in- 
volved would justify any reasonable sacrifices in meeting 
that demand, he consented to make the experiment. 
Accordingly on the first day of January, 1827, he 
opened in a log cabin, which had been bnilt for a differ- 
ent purpose on his own premises, a little grammar 
school, consisting of six boys, not one of whom was pious, 
although all the sons of the covenant. 

The Eev. W. M. Cheever, a graduate of Hanover 
College, writes: "My father, who was teaching school 
in Paris, Jennings county, was prevailed upon by Eev. 
John Finley Crowe to remove in 1825 to Hanover and 
open a school in the old stone meeting-house, which was 
to become in part a sort of feeder to the classical acad- 
emy which Mr. Crowe intended to open at no distant 
da}^ Though a mere lad, I attended my father's school, 
studjdng under him the Latin grammar. Two years 
after, in 1827, when between eight and nine years of age, 
I started to Mr. Crowe's Classical Academy, which was 
opened in his old loom house. I remember vividly that 
first day. It was quite an epoch in my life. Besides 
my father, who was deeply interested in this young 
school of the prophets, as he termed it, often afterwards 
alluded to the events of that day, and they became fixed 
in my memory. He used to tell me I had this pre- 
eminence, if no other: I was the first student on the 
ground the day when Dr. Crowe opened his Academy. 
On the first day there were but two students present, 
James Logan and I. He and I had the distinguished 
honor of being the pioneer students. There were but 



HISTORY OF HAI^OVER COLLEGE. 33 

two at the first recitation, three at the second, and sev- 
eral others dropped in that week, and more the week 
following. Perhaps one reason why my memory of those 
days onght to be better than that of others is that my 
father was Dr. Growers nearest neighbor and intimate 
friend. These matters were themes of constant conver- 
sation between Dr. Crowe and my father in my presence. 
I call np with more ease the recollections of those days 
than I do the transactions of 1832, when I re-entered 
and graduated." 

Of the first six entering the Academy, four became 
ministers of the gospel and two pious physicians. 

At the meeting of the Madison Presbytery with the 
Sand Creek Church, now Kingston, in Decatur county, 
April 11, 1828, the following resolutions were adopted: 

''Resolved, That we deem it important to the interests 
of the church that a school should be established within 
our bounds, at which young men of promising talent and 
good moral character may receive such education as, 
with the blessing of God, may qualify them for useful- 
ness in the church ; and whereas a school of this descrip- 
tion has been established at Hanover, Jefferson county, 
under the care of Eev. John Finley Crowe, with assur- 
ance of liberal patronage from those in its vicinity, pro- 
vided it be taken under the superintendence of this 
Presbytery, therefore, 

"Resolved, further. That we take said school under 
our patronage, and that Messrs. Crowe and Duncan be a 
committee to report a plan for its organization and gov- 
ernment." 

The school was so received, a board of trustees elected. 



34 ■ HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

a visiting committee appointed, and Eev. Mr. Crowe ap- 
pointed principal under direction of the trustees. 

At the fall meeting of the Presbytery, which was at 
Hanover, October 3, 1828, the visiting committee made 
a ver}^ favorable report concerning the literary progress 
of the students. They stated that the condition and 
prospects of the school were of a very encouraging char- 
acter; that the number of students was sixteen, and a 
considerable addition was expected at the next session. 
They also stated that ground had been given by William- 
son Dunn for the erection of a building, and also a dona- 
tion by him of several lots in the village of Hanover, 
which had been platted, the proceeds of the sale of which 
were for the benefit of the Academy, and that a brick 
building two stories high, twent3^-five by forty feet on 
the ground, would be built in the coming year, subscrip- 
tions for the same having been made. 

The committee recommended, with some changes in 
the board of trustees, the appointment of a committee to 
seek from the Legislature of the State a charter for the 
Academy. The recommendations of the committee were 
adopted. Additions were made to the board of trustees, 
and Jeremiah Sullivan, Williamson Dunn, Eev. John 
Finley Crowe and Eev. James H. Johnston were ap- 
pointed to secure the charter from the next Legislature. 

A special blessing followed the meeting of the Presby- 
tery at Hanover. Eeligious services were continued 
after the adjournment of Presbytery. There was a 
gracious revival, in which forty persons were added to 
the church. The revival gave a spiritual blessing to the 
Academy, added to its reputation among the churches, 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 35 

and increased its numbers so that to accommodate them 
it was necessary to remove the school from its close quar- 
ters to the stone church. 

The committee appointed to secure a charter were suc- 
cessful, and February 26, 1829, the trustees met and 
organized under their charter. Eev. J. M. Dickey was 
elected President of the board, Col. Samuel Smock, 
Treasurer, and Eev. James H. Johnston, Secretary; 
Rev. J. F. Crowe, Principal of the Academy. It was 
also determined that another teacher possessing the nec- 
essary qualifications for giving instruction in theology 
should be employed as soon as it was practicable. Messrs. 
Crowe and Johnston were appointed a committee of 
correspondence with reference to the subject with such 
persons as they deemed suitable. October 1, 1829, this 
committee reported a letter from the Rev. John Mat- 
thews, D. D., Shephardstown, Virginia. The committee 
was continued, and was authorized to bring the subject 
before the Synod of Indiana. In the meantime the 
Academy building had been transferred by deed to the 
board of trustees, and also a farm for carrying forward 
the plan for a manual labor school. Fifty acres of this 
farm had been given by Mr. Crowe and fifty by William- 
son Dunn. 

The Synod of Indiana, which at that time embraced 
the three States of Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, and 
had united in it the Presbyteries of Madison, Salem and 
Wabash in Indiana, the Center Presbytery of Illinois, 
and the Presbytery of Missouri, met on the 15th day of 
October, 1829, at Shoals Creek, Bond county, Illinois, 
forty or forty-five miles east of St. Louis. The dis- 



36 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

tance which the members of Madison Presbytery were to 
travel was more than three hundred miles, and the trav- 
eling was to be done on horseback. 

The time occupied in the journey was over a week. 
The members that went from Madison Presbytery were 
John M. Dickey, John F. Crowe, Samuel Gl. Lowry, 
Samuel Gregg, James IsT. Johnston and Samuel Smock. 
The only elder was Samuel Smock, of the Hanover 
church. They started early enough in the week preced- 
ing Synod to reach Yincennes and spend the Sabbath 
with the Indiana Church. On Monday their cavalcade, 
increased by members of other Presbyteries, numbered 
fifteen. They crossed the Wabash earh^ in the morning 
and set forward cheerily into the grand prairies of Illi- 
nois. These were then uninhabitated, mth the excep- 
tion of a few establishments along the principal thor- 
oughfares for the accommodation of travelers. The fol- 
lowing is a matter-of-fact statement from the pen of 
Mr. Crowe of the accommodation of this company of 
ministers and elders for a night not far from Yandalia, 
then the capital of the Territor};^ : 

"We had traveled until the shades of evening were 
gathering thick around, when we came to a human hab- 
itation, a little cabin by the roadside. As it seemed out 
of the question for so large a company to be accommo- 
dated there, we inquired how far to the next house ? 
Six miles was the response. As the road was new and 
unbroken, we saw at once that we must make the best of 
our condition. The f amil}^ consisted of the man and his 
wife, their domicile of a single room some fifteen feet 
square, and without furniture except a small table and 



HISTORY OF HAXOYER COLLEGE, 37 

three or four stools. But they were willing to do all 
they could for our comfort. They would supply our 
horses with corn and plenty of pumpkins^ and ourselves 
with fried venison and corn breads and when it came to 
sleeping, they would resign the house to us. The supper 
passed off satisfactorily, and when bed-time came we 
covered the entire floor with our saddle blankets, using 
our saddles for pillows and our cloaks for covering, the 
good people of the house occupying a little shanty in the 
yard as a bed-chamber for the night.'^ 

After a journey of eight days the place appointed for 
the meeting of the Synod was reached. At this meeting 
of the Synod, the fourth in its history, twenty-two min- 
isters were present and seven elders. Nineteen minis- 
ters were absent. Mr. Crowe, as retiring Moderator, 
preached the opening sermon. At every preceding meet- 
ing of the Synod from the beginning the subject of 
education, and especially theological education, had been 
under consideration. At the first Synod, at Vincennes, 
in 1826, a committee was appointed to prepare an over- 
ture to the G-eneral Assembly on the location of the 
Western Theological Seminary. Salmon Iddings, of 
Missouri Presbytery, Baynard E. Hall and George Bush, 
of Wabash Presbytery, John F. Crowe and James H. 
Johnston, of Madison Presbytery, were the committee. 
They prepared an overture for the location of the Sem- 
inary at Charlestown, Indiana. Messrs. Dickey, Hamil- 
ton and Bush were appointed a special committee of 
correspondence to look after the interests involved in the 
overture. This action of the Synod was ineffective, the 
Assembly locating the Seminary at Alleghany, which 



38 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

the Synod thought too far East to secure the needed 
benefits for the West. The action taken by the Synod, 
thougli ineffective, showed that interest in the establish- 
ment of an institution of learning for raising up min- 
isters on the field for the great Central West was not 
local or confined to a few individuals, but pervaded the 
entire ministry and all the churches of the widely ex- 
fended Synod. At the second meeting of the Synod, at 
Salem, a committee was appointed to consider the ex- 
pediency of taking preparatory steps for the establish- 
ment of a Literary and Theological Seminary under the 
care of the Synod, and should such be thought by them 
expedient, they were authorized to draw up a plan of 
such Seminary and report at the next meeting of the 
S3^nod. Messrs. Dickey, Crowe and Johnston were ap- 
pointed said committee. At the meeting of the Synod 
the next year, 1828, at Yincennes, the minutes of the 
Synod say : "The committee appointed at the last meet- 
ing to report on the propriety of Synod taking prepara- 
tory steps for the establishment of a Literary and Theo- 
logical Seminary reported on the same, which was re- 
ceived and is on file. After some discussion on the sub- 
ject of the report, the further consideration of it was 
indefinitely postponed, except the item concerning a 
Theological Seminary, the consideration of which was 
postponed until the next meeting of Synod.^^ This next 
meeting of the Synod, the fourth, was the meeting at 
Shoals Creek, Bond county, Illinois. 

It was not an unprepared soil upon which the good 
seed from Hanover was to be cast, but the ground that 
had been gone over very carefully for several years in 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 39 

succession, and that had been thoroughly prepared. The 
consideration of the report concerning a Theological 
Seminary, laid over from the Synod of the preceding 
year, was taken up, and the following resolution was 
passed: 

"Whereas^ Hanover Academy has been incorporated 
by an act of the Legislature of the State of Indiana, 
according to which act the board of trustees of said 
Academy are permitted by special provision to place it 
under the care of any body of learned men that they may 
select; and 

"Whereas^ The board at a late meeting appointed a 
committee of that body to make a tender of the institu- 
tion to the Synod of Indiana, that said Synod might 
avail themselves of the corporate privileges granted in 
founding a Theological Seminary in connection with the 
Academy ; therefore, 

''Resolved, That a committee be appointed on the part 
of the Synod to confer with the committee of the trustees 
of the .Academy, and to report on the subject as soon as 
practicable.^^ 

The committee consisted of John M. Dickey, of Mad- 
ison Presbytery, Ashbel S. Wells, of Salem, and James 
Thomson, of Wabash. The committee reported that 
the interests of the churches within the bounds of the 
Synod would be promoted by taking the Academy under 
the care of the Synod. They recommended the Synod 
to adopt the Academy; to take measures to establish a 
permanent fund for the support of Theological Profes- 
sors, and that the Synod appoint a board of directors to 
superintend the Theological Department in Hanover 



40 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

Academy. The recommendations of the committee were 
adopted. The time was fixed later in the day for the 
election of the Theological Professor. It was ordered to 
be by ballot. When the time of election came, John 
Matthews, of Shephardstown, Virginia, was unani- 
mously elected. Thus were the prayers and labors, faith 
and hope of the pioneer ministers of Indiana crowned 
with success in the establishment of an institution of 
learning which was to begin the work of supplying min- 
isters for the needy and widening fields of the great 
Central West. 



CHAPTEK n. 

Dr. Matthews was informed forthwith of his election. 
Early in December he arrived in Hanover to overlook 
the field. He met with the board of trustees. They 
gave full exposition of the origin and design of the in- 
stitution, its resources and prospects, and placed before 
him the destitution and wants of the country, and the 
views and feelings manifested by the Synod at its recent 
meeting with reference to the whole subject. Dr. Mat- 
thews frankly stated to the board the conditions upon 
which he would accept the position to which he was 
elected, provided, upon consultation with his friends and 
consideration of the matter in all its bearings, he felt it 
was his duty to do so. One of his conditions was the 
assurance of a support by some responsible body. The 
board at once took action pledging a salary of six hun- 
dred dollars a year for his services, if he should accept 
the place. 

After his return to Virginia, Dr. Matthews was in 
great doubt as to his duty. His iriends counseled 
against his going to the West. It was hard to sever the 
ties that bound him to a large and loving church. But 
he would not close his ears to the Macedonian cry from 
the West. He determined in his stress of mind to com- 
mit the determination of the matter to the Providence of 
God. He knew that there would be need at once of an 



43 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

additional Professor for the Theological Department of 
the school. He determined to visit Philadelphia and 
'New York, and if he conld succeed in securing pledges 
for a salary of five hundred dollars a year for five years 
for the support of an additional Professor, he would 
accept the appointment as of a work to which he was 
called of God. He had no difficulty in obtaining in 
those cities what he sought from Christian men deeply 
interested, both from piety and patriotism, in the work 
of missions in the West. He was successful beyond his 
expectations. The question was settled, and upon his 
return home he informed the board of his acceptance, 
and of his purpose to remove to Hanover in the spring. 
When he was elected it was not expected that he would 
enter upon his work in less than twelve months, nor was 
it expected that there would be any students on the 
ground for instruction in theology before that time. 
But Dr. Matthews thought it best for the church he was 
serving and for all concerned that his removal should 
take place at once. At Hanover there was no house for 
him and his family. The board met and directed the 
building committee to erect at once a log house for the 
temporary dwelling of Dr. Matthews while a suitable 
brick building could be erected. The citizens and stu- 
dents turned out as if for fun and frolic, and in a few 
weeks had a hewed log house, with shingle roof, brick 
chimneys and four rooms, ready for occupancy, and with 
but little expense to the board. Dr. Matthews and his 
family arrived about the middle of May. On the 
twenty-fourth day of May the board convened and Dr. 
Matthews, having been elected a member, took his seat 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 43 

with them. Correspondence, by direction of the board, 
was at once opened with the Professors of the Theolog- 
ical Seminary at Princeton, 'New Jersey, with reference 
to securing a suitable young man from the Seminary to 
be appointed by the Synod as Professor of Biblical Lit- 
erature. J. W. Cunningham, of the Senior Class, was 
recommended, and at the meeting of the Synod at Mad- 
ison in October, 1830, he was elected. At this meeting 
of the Synod at Madison a detailed plan of union and 
cooperation of the Synod and of the Academy was 
adopted. But when the Synod adjourned it had failed 
to provide for the payment of the salary of the Professor 
of Theology whom they had called to their work, leaving 
the burden of this on the board of trustees. In this 
same month of October a severe calamity had befallen 
the young institution. The building committee had 
succeeded in securing funds and erecting a comfortable 
and commodious brick dwelling for the Professor of 
Theolog}^ Not only friends at Hanover and vicinity 
had contributed liberally, but at Madison and at Louis- 
ville and from other places help had been given, and the 
house was about ready for plastering and painting, when, 
in the absence of the workmen at dinner, children play- 
ing with fire ignited the shavings on the floor, and the 
building was speedily consumed. To again gather 
means to rebuild from those who had given was hope- 
less. In this emergency the board determined to appeal 
for aid for the Theological Department of the Academy 
to Christian friends east of the mountains. As there 
were no students of the Acadeni}'' advanced enough to 
enter upon theological studies, and as none from abroad 



44 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

had presented themselves. Dr. Matthews agreed to take 
charge of the Academy for a time; Mr. William Gregg, 
a graduate of Miami University, was secured as teacher 
of mathematics, and Mr. Crowe, principal of the Acad- 
emy, was commissioned to go to the East as an agent of 
the institution to solicit funds for it. Early in Decem- 
ber, 1830, Mr. Crowe set out on his eastward journey. 
It was near April, 1831, before he returned. This work 
was one crowded with difficulties. It called for the 
exercise of exhaustless patience, of unfailing persever- 
ance and unremitting diligence. Nothing but devoted 
consecration to the Lord^s work, with faith and hope and 
prayer, could have carried him through all its difficulties 
and pathetic details, and given him the measure of suc- 
cess which in the end he achieved. He returned with 
something over three thousand dollars. With this the 
trustees were enabled to rebuild the house of the Profes- 
sor of Theology, and also erect a house for the superin- 
tendent of the farm, by means of which the plan of the 
Manual Labor School was to be carried on. This house 
was also to be a boarding-house for students. The 
school v\^as prosperous. There were about fifty students 
in attendance, and these, prosecuting their studies, were 
clearing off the farm, making rails and cutting cord 
wood, for which they were credited on their board and 
tuition at the usual price for that kind of labor. 

There were some misgivings as to the Manual Labor 
system. It was an experiment. It was popular. Many 
things seemed favorable to it. The institution was 
prosperous and the trustees went forward. Col. George 
Briggs had come from ISTew England, highly com- 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 45 

mended, and a contract was made with him to take 
charge as superintendent of the buildings, of the work 
to be done on the farm and in the shop, and to have 
charge as steward of the boarding-honse. Plans were 
made for the erection of shops and cottages for rooms 
for students, and also for a college building proper, of 
brick, forty by one hundred feet on the ground, three 
stories high, with chapel and recitation rooms and 
thirty-three rooms for students. This was by the end 
of 1832. Progress was also made in instruction and 
studies. At the beginning of the summer session of 
1832 over seventy students were enrolled. In the mid- 
dle of the summer the teaching force was increased by 
the employment of Mark A. H. Niles, from Princeton 
Theological Seminary, and a graduate of Amherst Col- 
lege. May 8, 1832, Mr. Crowe resigned the principal- 
ship of the Academy, and the Eev. Dr. James Blythe, of 
Lexington, Kentucky, was elected President. He was a 
man of reputation and widely known. He had been 
some years before Moderator of the General Assembly of 
the Presbyterian Church. He had also been President 
of Transylvania University for a number of years, and 
afterwards Professor of Chemistry in the Lexington 
Medical School. Mr. Crowe was elected Vice-President. 
The scheme of studies was changed to that of a college 
course, with a Preparatory Department. Dr. Blythe was 
Professor of Moral Science, Chemistry and Natural 
Philosophy. Vice-President Crowe was Professor of 
Logic, Belles-Lettres and History. M. A. H. Niles was 
Professor of the Latin, Creek and French Languages, 
and John H. Hamej, who had previously been Professor 



46 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

in Indiana College at Bloomington^ became Professor of 
Mathematics and Astronomy. Until other provisions 
could be made, the instruction in the Preparatory De- 
partment was to be divided among these teachers. Dr. 
BlythC;, with his family;, came to Hanover late in Octo- 
ber, and entered upon his work at the opening of the 
session, November 1, 1832. At the first of the year 
1833 the ceremonies of the inauguration of the Presi- 
dent, the Vice-President and the Professors occurred. 
A few days after these ceremonies the trustees received 
from the State Legislature a college charter. This char- 
ter they had asked from the preceding Legislature, but 
opposition from the trustees of the State Institution at 
Bloomington had caused their petition to be denied. 
This opposition had been overcome in the succeeding 
Legislature, and the obtaining of the charter for the 
.College was celebrated with enthusiasm, and with a 
grand illumination of the College building. 

The College edifice was now completed;, the large 
boarding-house was occupied by a business man, pre- 
pared to board two hundred students, and there were 
dormitories furnished for half that number. There 
were opportunities for labor, not only on the farm, but 
in a carpenter's shop and wagon-maker's shop, all fur- 
nished with tools and competent men to boss them. 
These facts were published, and an assurance given that 
young men of industrious habits might defray the whole 
expense of their board by their own labor, without im- 
peding their progress in acquiring an education. The 
spreading of these facts throughout the country by the 
press caused a confluence of men and boys at the College. 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 47 

The summer session opened with an enrollment of a 
hundred and sixty students from fifteen different States. 
And they kept coming. The number soon became about 
two hundred. A pen picture of Hanover at the time is 
of interest. It is from Judge W. W. Gilleland: "My 
first view of Hanover was in ISS-i, by moonlight^ after 
walking up from the landing. The dwellings were 
plain^ few and small. There were no sidewalkS;, but 
plenty of stumps^, and students were everywhere. I shall 
never forget the strange appearance of the faculty and 
students as they assembled in the chapel for morning 
prayers. There were Dr. Bl3^the, Dr. Crowe and Pro- 
fessors Harney, jSTiles and Thomson, and students seemed 
to come from everywhere — the upper stories of the Col- 
lege, Bachelors^ Row, four rooms on College Point, a log 
cabin on Judge Dunnes lot, and from private houses in 
the town and neighborhood. The town and the College 
were one in interest and one in sympathy, and each a 
blessing to the other.'' But all was not as prosperous as 
this pen picture and the number of students in attend- 
ance seemed to indicate. Troubles arose in connection 
with the boarding of the students at a dollar a week. 
These troubles were met and obviated in various ways. 
But greater troubles arose from the want of sufficient 
returns from the labors of the students on the farm and 
in the workshops. But wdiat was to be done? It was 
the Manual Labor system that had given the College its 
prestige and secured for it its unparalleled prosperity. 
Besides, by its charter the College was bound to furnish 
students a limited amount of manual labor, for which 
they were to be remunerated by credit on their expenses 



48 HISTORY OE HANOVER COLLEGE. 

in pursuing their studies. But the employment of more 
than two hundred young men and boys of every variety 
of disposition and habits for two hours a day in a way 
that would prove remunerative seemed to be out of the 
question. A committee was appointed to investigate. 
They reported a debt of two thousand dollars. The re- 
port was startling. But there seemed to open a way of 
deliverance in adopting the work of printing and bind- 
ing. This had been publicly advocated in the news- 
papers as affording profitable employment for manual 
labor institutions. Some members of the board became 
its ardent advocates. A heavy expense must necessarily 
be incurred in adopting this kind of work. But the ad- 
vocates of the new industry thought there would be no 
difficulty in raising all needful funds from the benevo- 
lent friends of the church school. A press was bought, 
and with it a religious newspaper, the Christian Stand- 
ard, printed in Cincinnati under the editorial super- 
vision of Dr. Joshua Wilson, pastor of the First Presby- 
terian Church of Cincinnati. The name of the paper 
was changed to that of the Western Presbyterian. But 
it soon became apparent that if the printing business 
and the publishing of a religious paper were to be of ad- 
vantage to the pecuniary interests of the College, it 
would be necessary that the business should be largely 
increased. With this in view, the printing of books and 
book-binding were undertaken. This involved the pur- 
chase of more machinery and the employment of prac- 
tical printers for constant labor. To some this enlarge- 
ment of the business seemed extremely hazardous. But 
there were others that were earnest advocates of it. 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 49 

The Eev. J. T. Eussel was appointed general agent for 
the board. He supplied the pulpit of the First Madison 
Church from April, 1834, to September, 1835. He was 
an able and eloquent minister. He had become a mem- 
ber of the board of trustees, and was a very earnest and 
ardent advocate of the printing work of the College and 
its enlargement. It was hoped that with him in the 
field as general agent a way of deliverance from pecuni- 
ary difficulties would be found. Meanwhile the institu- 
tion was apparently flourishing. Its number of stu- 
dents increased. In the catalogue for 1835 two hun- 
dred and thirty were enrolled; twelve of these were in 
the Theological Department, five of them graduating. 

There was at this time a wide interest taken in the 
Theological Department of the College. A convention 
had been held at Eipley, Ohio, August 20, 1834, to which 
delegates had been invited from the Synods of Ohio, 
Cincinnati, Kentucky and Indiana. The convention 
had for its object the reorganization of this department 
of the College. It was proposed that out of this de- 
partment the Indiana Theological Seminary should be 
constituted, with less intimate relations to the board of 
trustees of the College, the Synods, or those of them 
cooperating in the scheme, appointing directors, who, 
with directors appointed by the trustees of the College, 
should have joint control of the Seminary, while its 
property and funds should be under the management of 
the College. This action, greatly enlarging the sphere 
of influence of the institution, was for the time favor- 
able to it. But there were untoward ecclesiastical con- 
ditions, as well as favorable. There were differences in 



50 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

the Presbyterian Church throughout the country on ec- 
clesiastical methods and measures, as well as differences 
upon doctrines. These differences grew and increased 
in intensity, until the great church was divided in 1837 
and 1838 into the New and Old School churches. These 
differences in their beginnings became manifest in the 
management of the College. There was a struggle in 
the Synod of Indiana, where the New and Old School 
parties were prett}^ evenly divided, for the management 
of the Theological Department of the College. xVnd 
when it was seen that the Old School men were in the 
ascendency in the board of trustees and the instruction 
of the College, several who had been active in the board 
resigned their seats and withdrew their influence and 
support. J. W. Cunningham, Professor of Biblical and 
Oriental Literature, resigned. But the board found a 
successor to him in Eev. Eobert H. Bishop. A year 
afterwards W. McKee Dunn, who had been principal of 
the Preparatory Department, was elected Professor ^f 
Mathematics, ISTatural Philosophy and Chemistry, in 
order to divide with Professor Harney the classes in 
these branches. He accepted on condition that he might 
be absent a year in study at Yale. Charles K. Thomp- 
son became principal of the Preparatory Department. 
But while the institution, despite the ecclesiastical dif- 
ferences that were troubling it, seemed on the full tide 
of prosperity, there was real and great danger for it in 
the financial breakers ahead, which those in charge of 
the College were making the most strenuous efforts to 
avoid. While agents were in the field for the religious 
paper, and a general agent was also laboring, the Presi- 



HISTORY OF HAXOVEE COLLEGE. 51 

dent of the College visited the East to solicit aid for the 
institution so prosperous in its work of reaching stu- 
dents, exerting so beneficent an influence, and promising 
to accomplish so much more, situated, as it was, on the 
great highway of steam navigation in the Ohio and 
Mississippi valleys. 

The President had not begun his work in the East 
when he received intelligence of the death of his wife, 
who had dropped dead from apoplexy while returning 
on her way home from an errand of mercy to a poor 
neighbor. It was an overwhelming affliction to him, 
taking away from him fitness for his work. After a 
time, however, he resumed it, having made the long 
journey for it. He succeeded in obtaining in Xew York 
and Philadelphia subscriptions for aid to the amount of 
ten thousand dollars, payable at a future time, but ob- 
taining very little money. He brought back with him, 
however, on his return a number of books for the library, 
and also an extensive and well-selected chemical and 
philosophical apparatus. But no relief was obtained 
for the growing debt. The general agency was also dis- 
continued, because it had not been successful. Real 
estate had been offered for sale, and some sold, but noth- 
ing like a sufficient amount for the emergency. The 
printing establishment, with all pertaining to it, was 
offered for sale, but no purchaser was found. And still 
the debt grew. It was continually increasing through 
the printing work. In this emergency Dr. Crowe went 
to the East to secure help. He made no stop until he 
reached Xew York City, and arrived there to see the 
smoking ruins of one of the most disastrous conflagra- 



52 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

tions that to that date had occurred in the history of the 
country. Fire had swept over forty acres of the busi- 
ness part of the city, destroying two millions' worth of 
property and leaving thousands houseless and homeless. 
Under such circumstances the men most noted for their 
liberality and benevolence could not listen to a detail of 
the pecuniary difficulties of a college far away off in 
Indiana. Dr. Crowe went on to Boston, but ecclesi- 
astical differences closed the door against him in that 
city, and after going still further East to Newburyport 
and not accomplishing anything, he returned to Phila- 
delphia and endeavored to make collections of the sub- 
scriptions taken by Dr. Blythe the year before, but with 
little success, and he was obliged to return to Hanover 
with only a few hundred dollars as the result of his 
labors. But the discouraging letters he had written 
concerning his work had caused the Executive Com- 
mittee to confer with a young gentleman distinguished 
for his enterprise and business tact, and who had for 
some time been connected with the printing establish- 
ment, and ascertain if he would not take it and the 
bindery and the religious paper, the Westerm Presby- 
ierian, off their hands. The committee found him will- 
ing to negotiate, and at once closed a bargain with him. 
The purchaser was Joseph G-. Montfort, now, in the last 
year of the nineteenth century, the venerable nono- 
genarian editor of the Herald and Presbyter, of Cincin- 
nati, and for so many years distinguished as a minister 
and editor for his work in the church and by the press. 
The constant growth of the debt was stopped, although 
the debt was not liquidated. The Manual Labor system 



HISTORY OF HAXOVER COLLEGE. 53 

of defraying in a large measure the expenses of the stu- 
dents had proved a failure^ and the number of students 
in attendance began to diminish. 

But there were other untoward events that doubtless 
cooperated to produce this diminution. Unhappily^ di- 
visions arose in the faculty^ both in regard to govern- 
ment and instruction. These difficulties issued in the 
resignation of the venerable President^, after four years 
of most successful conduct of the educational work of 
the College. The board accepted his resignation^, and 
at the end of the collegiate year in 1836 the College was 
without a President. Immediate steps were taken to 
secure a successor, but they were without avail. Dr. 
Matthews, of the Theological Department, was acting 
President, the Vice-President, Dr. Crowe, being, at the 
request of the Board, actively engaged in agency work 
to relieve the College from its embarrassments, which 
were suddenly and unexpectedly largely increased. 

On the fifth day of July, 1837, a tornado of great 
violence swept over the village of Hanover, prostrating 
everything in its path. The College building was sadly 
wrecked. That there were no lives lost was due to the 
fact that when the disaster occurred some seventy stu- 
dents that roomed in the building were at supper in the 
Eefectory, which was not in the path of the tornado. 
The tornado was followed by a tremendous rain, which 
continued all night. The ruin wrought was revealed 
next morning. The main building of the College was 
unroofed ; the eastern wall of the third story was thrown 
down, and the wing, a two-story building, twenty-five 
by forty feet on the ground, was demolished to the 



54 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

ground. The house of Professor ISTiles, a few rods to 
the east of the College^, was not only demolished^, but its 
materials, together with a large library, had been scat- 
tered like chaff before the wind. Happily, there were 
no occupants in the house. Professor Mies and his fam- 
ily were in jSTew England, whither they had gone some 
months before for rest and recuperation. The effects 
of the tornado were more seriously felt in the finances 
of the College. Immediate repairs were necessar}^, and 
to make them required a large outlay. The destruc- 
tion of most of the dormitories and all the recitation 
rooms led necessaril}^ to a dispersion of most of the stu- 
dents until repairs could be made. Some forty or fifty, 
mostly of the higher classes, remained and had their 
regular recitations in a school-house. The old stone 
church had been torn down, and arrangements had been 
made for building a new house of worship, larger than 
the old, which was too strait for the growing congre- 
gation. The church had made arrangements with the 
College authorities to hold their Sabbath services in the 
College chapel while their new building was going up, 
and they had a large amount of material on hand and a 
goodly sum promised upon subscription for their build- 
ing. All this inured greatly to the benefit of the Col- 
lege in its emergency and financial distress, which was 
increased by the loss of the fees of the departed students 
and their diminished numbers, as many that left never 
returned, having entered into other institutions. By the 
trustees and officers of the church, representing the mind 
of the congregation, an agreement was made with the 
trustees of the College by which the subscription and 



HISTORY OF HAXOVER COLLEGE. 55 

material of the church for its new edifice were turned 
over to the College for reconstructing its edifice^ the 
church acquiring the right to hold its services in the 
College chapel until such time as the College could re- 
imburse them for what had thus been turned over and it 
should be best for all parties that there should be a new 
church building, as had been originally planned. 

At the College commencement of 183T there were 
fifteen in the graduating class, but the prospects of the 
College were dark. Professor Xiles sent his resigna- 
tion from Xew England, giving as his principal reason 
the condition of his wife's health. A month afterwards 
Professor Dunn tendered his resignation, on account of 
the financial difficulties of the College. A month after 
this Professor Harney tendered his resignation. It was 
stroke after stroke. The hearts of some of the trustees 
failed them. They proposed to disband and give up the 
institution. But notwithstanding the embarrassments, 
difficulties and discouragements, the majority, convinced 
of the great importance of the work in which they were 
engaged to the interests of church and state in the rap- 
idly growing West, resolved to go forward, trusting in 
the favor of God and man to crown their efforts with 
success, and to establish in permanency and with widen- 
ing influence the institution which had been founded in 
faith and prayer. At the beginning of 1838 they 
thought they had found a President in Rev. Duncan Mc- 
Aule}', D. D., of Columbus, Ohio. He was principal of 
a high school at Columbus. He was commended to the 
board as a gentleman well qualified to preside over a 
college. He was represented as having recently emi- 



56 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

grated from Scotland, and as having testimonials of the 
most satisfactory character as to his talents, attainments 
and high standing among the scholars of Scotland. 
During some agency work in Ohio Dr. Crowe had visited 
him, and was favorably impressed with his appearance 
and manners. He was elected President at the begin- 
ning of the year. At the same time the board of trustees 
elected Noble Butler Professor of Latin and Greek. 
They also elected Thomas Hynes Professor of Mathe- 
matics. Dr. McAuley was inaugurated March 27. His 
address at his inauguration made a fine impression. He 
was attractive and popular in his manners. The sum- 
mer session opened with the most flattering prospects. 
But two months had not elapsed when the board were 
astounded by the most indubitable evidence that their 
President was an impostor, and that twelve months be- 
fore he had been deposed from the ministry by a Presby- 
tery in Upper Canada for gross immoralities. His rela- 
tions to the College were consequently severed, and in 
July it was again without a President. But, marred as 
the history of the College was by this incident, and sad 
as it is to have so ignoble a name upon the pages of its 
catalogue and in the roll of its honored and distin- 
guished Presidents, the mistake was so quickly corrected 
that no permanent injury came to the College from it. 



CHAPTEE III. 

Again the institntion was in quest of a President. 
Soon they fonnd a trne man. It was E. D. McMasters, 
of Scotch lineage, from Ballston Center, Xew York. A 
letter of inquiry to him respecting his willingness to 
accept the position brought in return a letter of inquiry 
from him respecting the College, its condition and pros- 
pects, that made so favorable an impression that they at 
once unanimously elected him President. 

The answer of the board to a question of Mr. Mc- 
Masters respecting the extent of the country that might 
be considered tributary to the College sets forth very 
clearl}" the difference between the Hanover of that day 
of steamboat, traveling, and before there were any rail- 
roads in the Stat^, and the Hanover of to-day, when 
railroads are everywhere and steamboat traveling is com- 
paratively a thing of the past. The board wrote: 
^^Judging from the patronage heretofore given, we would 
answer that the extent of country is immense, the inhab- 
itants of which are disposed to patronize our College. 
As it is located on the bluffs of the Ohio river, almost all 
the States of the great valley are brought, as it were, to 
its doors, so that we have students from ISTew York, 
Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentuck}', Tennessee, Illinois 
. and Missouri, as well as from the Southwestern States.^' 
In their reply to the questions of Mr. McMasters the 



58 IIISTOKY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

trustees fully set forth the difficulties and embarrass- 
ments of the institution : no funds for the support of the 
faculty and for contingent expenses, except tuition fees 
of students and such aid as could be gathered by agents 
from friends of the institution willing to contribute to 
its support; the debt of the College about equal in 
amount to the value of its property ; the untoward events 
that had occurred, greatly embarrassing the College ; the 
great tornado that had wrecked the College building; 
the fact that the College had been without a President 
or chief executive officer for the past two years ; and the 
great financial depression and distress of the country 
that had begun in the preceding year and was still pre- 
vailing. But the trustees also set forth in their letter 
the encouragements they had for the institution. First, 
the fact that, with no other foundation but the faith and 
prayers and efforts of its founders, it had grown in 
eleven years from a school of six scholars in a log cabin 
fourteen by sixteen feet to be one of the most reputable 
colleges in the West. Second, the fact that the Old 
School part of the Presbyterian Church took a lively in- 
terest in it, and looked to it for their future ministry, 
and the assurance that the friends of the College were 
numerous, and would, if it were conducted acceptably to 
them, exert their influence to direct students to it and 
aid its funds. 

j\Ir. McMasters accepted the Presidency. He was ex- 
pected to be in Hanover at the commencement, which 
then occurred in Sentember, but did not arrive until 
two days after. On November 7, 1838, during the first 
week of the opening college year, he was inaugurated 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 59 

President. He was at this time thirty-two years of age. 
He was a man of great abilities and great learning, and, 
beginning in his connection with Hanover College the 
educational work of his life, he became greatly distin- 
guished in it, though not so mnch in collegiate as in 
theological instrnction. He sought with an earnest zeal 
the promotion of the interests of the College, and in 
many ways manifested an eminent wisdom and pru- 
dence. One of the first things recommended by Presi- 
dent McMasters was the establishment of a Law Depart- 
ment in connection with the College. Upon his recom- 
mendation Judge Eggleston, an eminent jurist of Mad- 
ison, who, it was ascertained, would accept the position, 
was elected Professor of Law. At the end of the college 
year four students reported in the Law Department. At 
the beginning of the year 1839 Professor Butler re- 
signed his professorship, and shortly afterwards Samuel 
Galloway, of Hillsborough, Ohio, a' graduate of Miami 
Universit}^, was elected his successor as Professor of 
Greek and Latin. At the annual meeting of the board 
in September, 1839, Dr. Crowe was compelled by the 
state of his health, which had been declining for several 
years, to resign his position as secretary of the board, and 
also his professorship in the College. He spent the 
winter in western Texas, and returned the following 
spring with renewed vigor, and, declining the further 
work of instruction in the College, was called a second 
time to the pastorate of the church of Hanover, and was 
again, in August, 1840, installed as pastor. 

In the fall of 1840 an event not a little detrimental to 
the interests of the College occurred. It was the re- 



60 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

moval of the Theological Seminary from Hanover to 
New Albany. For several years this change had been 
foreshadowed. The primary object in the establishment 
of Hanover Academy and College had been the educa- 
tion of ministers of the gospel for the growing West. 
For the accomplishment of this work the Synod of In- 
diana had established in connection with it a Theological 
Department. The growing wants of the West had 
brought into association with the Synod of Indiana other 
adjoining Synods^ and an entire separation of the man- 
agement of the Theological Department from the Col- 
lege had been effected, and the Theological Department 
had become a theological seminary entirely independent 
of the College, except its funds were under the manage- 
ment of the trustees of the College. It had, however, 
been ascertained that its connection with Hanover Col- 
lege even this much was a reason for some of the friends 
of the colleges of neighboring Synods to stand aloof 
from the Seminary, under the impression that it gave to 
the College at Hanover an important advantage over its 
rivals in their laudable competition for public favor. 
The directors of the Seminary therefore proposed, with 
the concurrence of the several Synods interested, to sub- 
mit the question of its continuance at Hanover or re- 
moval from it to a delegated convention called to deter- 
mine the question of location. This convention met at 
Louisville in N"ovember, 1838. N'ew Albany, Hanover 
and Charlestown were put in nomination. New Albany 
offered a bonus of eight thousand dollars; Hanover 
offered a bonus of two thousand dollars, which included 
a beautiful site for buildings overlooking the river, a gift 



HISTORY 0¥ HANOVER COLLEGE. 61 

offered by the owner, George Logan, an elder of the 
Presbyterian church. Charlestown offered no bonns. 
Xew Alban}^ was chosen. But it was two years before 
all arrangements were made for removal of the Sem- 
inary to its new home. During its continuance in Han- 
over its number of students had gradually increased 
from three to thirty. Dr. Matthews had continued with 
it from the beginning, and remained in the institution 
until his death, which occurred on the 19th of May, 
1818, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. There had 
been associated with him at Hanover five different Pro- 
fessors in the chair of Biblical and Oriental Literature. 
Of two of these. Professors Cunningham and Bishop, 
mention has been already made. The third was Eev. 
Oswald Hunter, from Scotland. He was on a visit to 
friends, and was persuaded by the directors of the Sem- 
inary to occupy temporarily the chair of Ecclesiastical 
History and Church Government. Upon the death of 
Professor Bishop he was called to the chair of Biblical 
and Oriental Literature. His wife dying soon after- 
ward, he returned at the close of the session to Scotland. 
The S3mod of Kentucky, in the fall of 1838, elected the 
Eev. Lewis W. Green Professor of Biblical Criticism and 
Oriental Literature. He entered upon his duties at 
Hanover, but after a few months resigned and returned 
to Kentucky. In the fall of 1839 the directors elected 
the Eev. James Wood to the chair that had been vacated 
by Professor Green, and in November he brought his 
family to Hanover and entered upon his duties. The 
presence and work and influence of these men had been 
of great benefit to the College and community, and the 



62 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

removal of the institution which had brought such men 
and which would take them away with it was felt as a 
sore bereavement. 

Before the removal of the Seminary occurred^ Pro- 
fessor Galloway resigned. Judge Eggleston^s health 
also failed him^ and the Law Department of the College 
was closed because the trustees were unable to provide a 
successor to Judge Eggleston. During the continuance 
of the Law Department its attendance increased to ten 
students. At the annual meeting of the board in Sep- 
tember^ 1840^ the Eev. C. K. Thompson was elected to 
succeed Professor Galloway. Minard Sturgus was 
elected principal of the Preparatory Department and 
Professor of Modern Languages. Mr. Thompson could 
not, on account of other labors in which he engaged, 
accept the professorship to which he was elected. The 
year after Professor Sturgus was elected Professor of 
Greek and Latin. Combined with all these changes and 
discouragements still continued the burden of the cor- 
poration's debt. The financial stringency still contin- 
ued, and hard times. The attendance of students had 
also been decreasing. The number on the catalogue for 
1840 was one hundred and five, but the largest number 
present at any time was eighty-five. The number on 
the catalogue for 1841 was eighty-five, but the largest 
number in attendance at any time was sixty-five. Cer- 
tainly there had been depression, and there was discour- 
agement. But the President wrought at his work with 
zeal and success. Under a plan recommended by him to 
the board, and approved by them, for securing a perma- 
nent endowment fund, he had obtained twelve thousand 



HISTORY OF HAXOVER COLLEGE. 63 

and four hundred, dollars. Work, however, which had 
been begun on this endowment fund soon after Dr. Me- 
Masters was inaugurated President, was suspended on 
account of the continued tinancial depression of the 
country. But in March, 1842, the President submitted 
a plan for the liquidation of the debt of the College. 
The plan was adopted, and December following, nine 
months afterwards, a rej^ort was made to the board of 
the settlement and payment of all claims, except one 
claim of a few hundred dollars, which remained unpaid 
for the time because of legal delays in connection 
with the settlement of an estate. A debt of fifteen thou- 
sand dollars liad been removed. The skies certainly 
were brightening. Dr. Crowe says: "The year 1843 
seemed to open with prospects peculiarly encouraging 
for the prosperity of the College. The stringency of 
the money market had relaxed, and both agricultural 
and commercial interests were looking up. Dr. Mc- 
Masters was 23opular, both as a presiding officer and as a 
successful teacher, and the College stood high in the 
public estimation.^^ At a meeting of the board in 1843 
two new Professors were elected: the Eev. Sylvester 
Scovel, Professor of Chemistry and ISTatural Histor}", 
and Eev. W. C. Anderson, Professor of Logic, Ehetoric 
and Belles-Lettres. Some of the members of the board 
hesitated, fearing a consequent debt. But Mr. Mc- 
Masters urged that, as the College was now disenthralled 
from all pecuniary embarrassments, both its patrons and 
the community at large expected it to take a higher 
stand among the literary institutions than it ever had 
occupied, and it behooved the board to see to it that 



64 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

these reasonable expectations were not disappointed. 
And while he admitted the correctness of the principle 
that expenditures should not exceed income, he assured 
them that if Messrs. Scovel and Anderson were elected, 
both of whom were known to be successful agents, all 
difficulty would be overcome by making such arrange- 
ments that either he himself or one of these men should 
be in the field as agents of the College until it should be 
able to sustain itself. Thus urged, the board elected the 
new Professors. Mr. Scovel declined, but Mr. Anderson 
accepted. 

The commencement in July, to which month it had 
been changed, gave decided indications of improvement. 
There were nearly one hundred students, and there were 
eight graduates. In October Professor Anderson at- 
tended the meetings of the Synods of Indiana and of 
Northern Indiana, and made a verbal report of the con- 
dition and prosperity of the College in every way prom- 
ising, with more than a hundred students in attendance. 
Eesolutions were passed in both Synods, with active 
unanimity and great cordiality, pledging themselves to 
sustain the College with all their influence, and recom- 
mending it to the patronage of all their churches. The 
College, indeed, seemed on the high road of prosperity 
and of desired and deserved success. In December, 
1843, another scene opened in the drama of its life, 
which at first seemed bright with promise, but soon 
gathered gloom and portents of destruction. On the 
10th of December an adjourned meeting of the board 
was held, at which the treasurer made his report for the 
college year ending in July preceding, and also a report 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 65 

for the current year. There were nine members present, 
all from Hanover and Madison. At this meeting the 
following resolution was adopted : 

''Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed on 
the state of the College, with instructions to report con- 
cerning the practicability and expediency of selecting a 
new location and the erection of new edifices thereon; 
and also concerning the ways and means of effecting the 
same and meeting the current expenses of the College.^^ 

Messrs. E. D. McMasters, Victor King, Williamson 
Dunn, L. M. G. Simrall and Tilly H. Brown were ap- 
pointed the committee. The board then adjourned, to 
meet on the 18th day of December to hear the report of 
the committee and to act upon it. 

The College building had been sadly wrecked by the 
tornado of 1837. In repairing damages the third story 
of the building had been removed, and it had been made 
a two-story building. The wing that had been demol- 
ished had not been re-erected, and the building, as it had 
not been repaired after several years of use, greatly 
needed renovating. It was insufficient also for college 
purposes. The erection of a new building had been 
talked of. There had been also talk of a change of loca- 
tion, removing from the center of the village to the high 
bluff a half a mile east, overlooking the river, and visible 
to the throngs of travelers passing up and down the 
river on the steamboats of that time. With entire 
unanimity the action of the board had been taken that 
this question concerning the new building and new loca- 
tion might be settled. The committee, before dispers- 
ing, agreed to meet on Friday afternoon of the following 



66 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

weekj three days before the meeting of the board, for 
preparation and consideration of the report. Dr. Mc- 
Masters went to Madison with the members of the board 
from that place;, and did not return until late in the 
afternoon of the Friday upon which the committee was 
to meet. Before this Friday came, rumors were heard 
in Hanover that Dr. McMasters was in Madison negoti- 
ating with the citizens of Madison for a transfer of the 
College to Madison, with a change of name to Madison 
University, and with enlarged powers. On Thursday 
afternoon word of this proposed change was brought to 
Dr. Crowe, the founder of the College, and whose life 
and work had been so intimately connected with it. He 
had not heard of the matter before. He assured his in- 
formant that it could not be; he was certain Dr. Mc- 
Masters could not be taking part in such a scheme or 
work. But a few hours later a hand-bill, printed over 
the names of some thirty citizens of Madison, was shown 
him. The document was as follows : 
'''To the Citizens of Madison: 

"It is probably known to most of you that the Hanover 
College, which has existed the past ten years in our 
vicinity, after a period of great pecuniary embarrass- 
ment, is at the present time in a much improved condi- 
tion. A debt of more than fifteen thousand dollars has, 
we learn, been recently liquidated. The trustees hold a 
subscription of more than twelve thousand dollars to- 
ward a permanent fund. 

"The number of students is much increased, about one 
hundred being in attendance the present session. From 
a concurrence of causes, this institution is looked to at 



HISTORY OF HAXOYER COLLEGE. 67 

the present time with a lively interest^, not only by a 
large portion of the citizens of our own State, but from 
a very extensive region of the Ohio, including large por- 
tions of the adjoining States, as well as of the country 
further south. We understand that the trustees, en- 
couraged by the favorable prospects of the institution, 
have it in contemplation to take immediate measures to 
select a new location, erect new edifices, and improve in 
other respects its condition. 

"The question has arisen in our minds, and we trust 
will enlist the interest of every citizen of Madison, 
whether such inducements may not be offered to the re- 
moval of the College from Hanover to this place and its 
combination with a large institution to be established 
here, under the conduct of the gentlemen now at Han- 
over, and such as may be associated with them, and thus 
to secure our city the advantages of a literary institution 
established upon such a character as to become the lead- 
ing institution for the whole central and lower part of 
the Ohio valley. The object should be at once to obtain 
the power of a University, and to take measures for the 
establishment of a Law Department and for professional 
teachers, in addition to the general College Department. 

"The advantages, pecuniary, literary and moral, 
which such an institution would confer upon our young 
and rising city are as obvious as they are numerous and 
great. 

"1. The erection of the requisite buildings would at 
once cause an expenditure here of from twent}^ to forty 
thousand dollars, benefiting mechanics, merchants, la- 
borers and all classes of citizens. And, beautiful and 



68 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

elegant as they would be, would be an ornament to the 
city. 

"2. Such an institution, with two, three or four hun- 
dred students in its various departments, would cause a 
permanent annual expenditure of not less than thirty to 
fifty thousand dollars among us. 

"3. Every parent who has a son that otherwise must 
be sent abroad to be educated will save from five hundred 
to one thousand dollars by having an institution at his 
own doors, besides all advantages of having his son un- 
der his eyes, and enjoying all the salutary influences of 
home. 

"4. The location of such an institution here will en- 
able many to avail themselves of its advantages who 
could not otherwise hope to enjoy them. Many parents 
would be able to educate their own sons liberally at home 
who can not afford to send them abroad. Our young 
men in mechanical, mercantile and other employments, 
who do not contemplate the prosecution of a classical 
education, would have an opportunity of pursuing such 
branches of stud}^ as they might desire without any ma- 
terial interference with their other occupations. 

'^^0. The establishment of such an institution among 
us would to the commercial character of our cit}^ add 
that literary character which to every liberal and en- 
lightened mind is so desirable, and would confer on it 
an enviable reputation throughout our own State and 
the whole country. 

"6. It would induce an immigration of families of 
the best description for intellectual and moral worth, 
who would be attracted to the place on account of the 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 69 

education of tlieir sons, and who would form most im- 
portant accessions to our population. 

"Such, fellow-citizens, are some of the advantages 
which at first sight suggest themselves as about to arise 
to us from the establishment of such a literary institu- 
tion among us. What say you? Shall we make the 
effort necessary to secure these advantages to ourselves ? 
The question is, we understand, in agitation already at 
New Albany, Jeffersonville, and perhaps other towns on 
the river. These towns will not be slow to perceive the 
advantages which its location will confer on the place 
where it may be established. Can not Madison, in this 
liberal and honorable competition, offer as strong in- 
ducements as an}^ other of its neighbors ? It is true we 
yet feel to some extent the pecuniary embarrassment of 
the times that have gone over us. But, should a liberal 
and spirited movement be made, we trust that such ar- 
rangements as time and terms of payment may be 
effected as shall meet the convenience of the citizens. 
The citizens will be called on in reference to this sub- 
ject. 

"Madison, December 13, 181^3.'' 

The plans and purposes of the new University were 
ideal. If there could have only been a realization of the 
ideal, a grand institution would have been founded. 
The advantages of such an institution were clearly set 
forth, yet the half was not told. But was the building 
of such an institution with the means at hand practi- 
cable? Was it wise to undertake such a scheme by 
soliciting subscriptions from those just emerging from 
the conditions of pecuniary embarrassments and make 



TO HISTORY OF HAXOVER COLLEGE. 

payment of subscriptions easy by granting long periods 
of time for payment? Could general promises of in- 
fluence and help from prominent citizens build up such 
a projected University ? Was it a good^ sound, wise, 
practical judgment to give up an institution that had a 
heroic history, and had just gotten through a wilderness 
of trouble, and was on the border of a promised land of 
prosperity, and concerning whose progress and useful- 
ness there could be no doubt, although there was no im- 
mediate prospect of ample endowment and enlarged 
equipment from resources of wealth in its immediate 
neighborhood ? If some influential and wealthy man or 
men had deposited in a bank a hundred thousand dollars 
as a starter for buildings and endowment, there might 
have been a solid ground of confldence upon which to be- 
gin to build in the establishment of the new university. 
But there was no such foundation. Then, again, Hanover 
might not die. It had a warm-hearted and large con- 
stituency, larger than Dr. McMasters, in his five years' 
residence at Hanover, had learned of. For it was the 
college of the church, and was favored and cherished by 
the growing church throughout the State. But the ex- 
periment was to be tried. On the Friday afternoon on 
which the committee was to meet to consider and ap- 
prove the report to be made to the board on the following 
Monday forenoon. Dr. McMasters returned from Mad- 
ison and read the report which, without consultation 
with any member of the committee or of the board re- 
siding at Hanover, he had prepared. Two of the com- 
mittee were from Madison. These, with Dr. McMasters, 
made a majority. His report and recommendations 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 71 

were to be presented to the board, which met on Monday 
forenoon at ten o^clock. 

It was not a day of telegraphs and telephones. It 
was very desirable that some of the friends of Hanover 
should be at the meeting of the board. Dr. Matthews, 
of New Albany, was president of the board, and had 
great influence with it. A special messenger was dis- 
patched to secure his attendance. But the messenger 
did not reach New Albany until after the Saturday 
steamboat up the river had left, and Dr. Matthews could 
not reach Hanover until after the meeting of the board 
on Monday. 

The board met on Monday, the 18th, and Dr. Mc- 
Masters read the following report : 
"To the Board of Trustees of Hanover College: 

"The Committee on the State of the College respect- 
fully present the following report : 

"The committee have had the whole subject referred 
to them under consideration, and have given to it the 
best examination of which they are capable. 

"It is known to the board that after a period of ex- 
treme depression, arising from pecuniary embarrass- 
ments and other causes, the College is in several re- 
spects in a much improved condition. A heavy debt, 
which had long embarrassed the institution, discourag- 
ing its best friends, and producing a widely spread 
expectation of its entire failure, had been recently liqui- 
dated. The number of students in attendance at the 
present time is larger by about one-third than at any 
preceding period for the last six or seven years, and the 
College, we have reason to believe, is looked to with a 



72 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

lively and favorable interest by a large and intelligent 
portion of the community, not only of our own common- 
wealth, but of the neighboring States. Your committee 
believe that the prospects, if proper measures be taken 
to accomplish the object of building up on a sound and 
permanent foundation a large, flourishing and efficient 
literary institution, to subserve the interests which this 
College is intended to promote, are far better than at any 
previous period. 

"This very improvement in our condition and pros- 
pects creates the necessity of corresponding efforts on 
our part. We ought not to lose the advantage of what, 
by much toil and patience and sacrifice, has been gained 
through want of wisdom or activity to avail ourselves 
of it. If we suffer the present tide of favorable regard,, 
which appears to be beginning to set towards us, to flow 
and ebb back without our promptly taking it at the 
flood, it may be long before we shall have another oppor- 
tunity. If we be competent to the position in which 
Providence has placed us, we will arouse ourselves, seize 
the opportunity offered, and strain every nerve to lay 
upon perhaps one of the finest fields for such an enter- 
prise that ever opened to the eye of man the foundations 
of what shall become (if not in our day, after we shall 
have ceased from our labors) a great and influential 
institution, to be the handmaid of the kingdom of our 
God and of his Christ. If all our hopes of this are not 
to be disappointed, the public expectation directed to- 
ward us must be met by the establishment of such an 
institution as shall deserve, and by deserving, command 
the public confidence and respect, and give to us our 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 73 

share of the education of the young men of the country. 
Measures vigorous^ decided and adequate to the accom- 
plishment of this object must be taken. A corps of in- 
structors sufficiently numerous and competent must be 
maintained, and to retain such the means must be pro- 
vided of affording to them a liberal pecuniary remuner- 
ation. If instructors are expected to perform what be- 
longs to their places, they must be adequately provided 
with libraries, apparatus, and whatever else is needed to 
the successful discharge of their duties. A suite of 
plain but tasteful and commodious buildings, in view 
of the great highway of steam navigation, near to which 
we are placed, is of ver}^ great importance in further- 
ance of this object at which we aim. 

"Your committee, in view of all these things, have re- 
volved with anxiety the subject of the present condition 
of the College and of the provision of means to enable 
it to accomplish the objects for which it has been estab- 
lished. They have been particularly instructed to re- 
port on two points: First, the practicability and the 
expediency of selecting a new location and erecting new 
edifices thereon, and the ways and means of effecting the 
same; second, the ways and means of providing for the 
current expenses of the College. Both these questions 
in our present circumstances seem to be encompassed 
with difficulties. 

"In respect to the first question, they believe the erec- 
tion of buildings more suitable than the present edifice 
to the purposes of a literary institution to be exceed- 
ingly important. No intelligent man, it is presumed, 
with the subject fully before him, in seeking to found a 



74 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE, 

great institution that is to stand for many ages, would 
deem the present site eligible in preference to one in 
view of the river. Yet if a site near the river be selected 
it will render necessary not only the erection of the 
buildings requisite for immediate college purposes, but 
of houses and other appurtenances for the professors 
and for the boarding and lodging of students. All this 
would involve an expenditure of not less than fifty 
thousand dollars. Your committee know not where or 
by what means such a sum can be raised to be expended 
for this purpose in this place, or even the amount requi- 
site to the erection on the present site of buildings on 
the most restricted plan which any may have contem- 
plated. The other question referred to them presents, 
if possible, a still more serious aspect. It appears from 
the treasurer's report, presented to the board at their 
last meeting, that the income is not equal to one-half of 
the current expenses of the College, and that within six- 
teen or seventeen months there had been incurred a debt 
of about twenty-three hundred dollars. Thus, after 
having by great efforts and sacrifices freed ourselves 
from a similar onerous burden, we are plunging head- 
long into another ruinous debt. This sane and honest 
men can not allow. The case is one of pressing urgency. 
The employment of an agent to secure contributions for 
this purpose has been suggested. But your committee, 
upon the best information which they have been able to 
obtain, believe that, though some small sums might be 
thus collected, the expectation of providing in this man- 
ner for so great a deficit as exists in the means of de- 



HISTORY OF HAXOYER COLLEGE. 75 

fraying the expenses of the institution would be delusive 
and end in disappointment. 

"Under the pressure of these difficulties^, an overture 
has been made by the citizens of Madison, proposing an 
incorporation of the interests hitherto concerned in sus- 
taining this College with a larger institution, possessing 
the powers of a University, to be located in that city, 
and promising on these conditions, in subscriptions and 
property (exclusive of the Seminary lot and building), 
a sum estimated at twenty thousand dollars, with verbal 
assurance from prominent and influential citizens that 
the whole expense of the requisite buildings will be con- 
tributed b}" citizens of that place. It has also been sug- 
gested that by a removal to that town a much larger 
number of pupils can be brought into the preparatory^ 
school than can be at this place, thus increasing the 
number of students in the higher departments, and so 
increasing the amount of income, so that it shall be 
equal to the present annual expenditure. 

"It would seem to be well worthy of reflection whether 
this proposal does not offer important advantages that 
ought to be embraced. Certainly, if we attempt at all 
to promote the great interests of truth and godliness 
through the establishment of a literary institution, we 
ought to make it the largest and most influential which 
it is in our power to make it, and the opportunity of 
establishing, under such a control as we approve, an in- 
stitution such as it is hoped by the blessing of God the 
foundation of may be laid, is not to be lightly rejected. 
If we do so, and draw ourselves up in our narrow shell, 
others wiser in their generation will not be slow to seize 



76 HISTOKY OF HAXOVER COLLEGE. 

the advantages which we thus refuse. It is, moreover, 
worthy of consideration whether it is not necessary to 
enlist some local interest by which the necessary build- 
ings may be obtained from the place where this institu- 
tion shall be established. This will still leave the li- 
braries, apparatus and endowment, without which no 
such institution can be well established or be expected 
to take a high rank, to be provided for from other quar- 
ters. Can we afford to reject the proposal made to us? 
The opportunity of adding a large number (probably 
from sixty to one hundred) of students to the prepara- 
tory school, and a corresponding amount to the income 
of the institution, is perhaps not to be rejected in our 
present pecuniary circumstances without thought. How 
else is the support of the institution to be provided for ? 
It is vain to think that it is to be by pecuniary sacrifices 
on the part of the instructors, such as they have made 
during the last five years, ^^^e have the assurance from 
the best authority that these can be continued no longer. 
It may be said that we have the prospect of a large in- 
crease of students, and of income from that source. 
Xot unless we can at once put the College in such condi- 
tion as to meet and satisfy the reasonable expectations of 
intelligent and thinking young men and of their par- 
ents. It is idle to expect it. The instructors may, by 
their personal exertions and influence abroad, bring stu- 
dents to the College, but they can not keep them. The 
decided indications from the last two months have been 
that, continuing in our present condition, we will have a 
less number the next session than we have the present. 
"Your committee, unable to propose any other meas- 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 77 

Tires that seem to them to promise success, and not know- 
ing how otherwise the pressing necessities of the College 
are to be provided for or it sustained, submit the pro- 
posal to you for your consideration/' 

The report was received. 

Following this report was a series of resolutions pro- 
viding for the abandonment of the College at Hanover, 
the surrender of its charter to the Legislature of the 
State, the securing of a charter for Madison University, 
and the acceptance by the board of a Seminary building 
at Madison and gifts aggregating, with the value of the 
Seminar}^, twenty thousand dollars, supplemented by 
verbal promises of other gifts, which, assurance was 
given, would be contributed. 

In vain did the members of the board residing at 
Hanover plead for delay in voting upon the report until 
there should be a full meeting of the board. Dr. Mc- 
Masters said he had conferred privately with a number 
of members of the board enough to make a msLJovitj. 
And while he had not hinted of the matter to members 
of the board residing at Hanover, he had consulted with 
all, he afterwards declared, whom he thought competent 
to give a good and sound judgment upon the matter. 
Among those whom he trusted as confidential advisers 
were new members, little conversant with the affairs of 
the College, and who had met but once before with the 
board. 

There was a majority in favor of the report and the 
action provided for in the resolutions accompanying it, 
and the report, with its resolutions, was adopted. Com- 
mittees were appointed to apply to the Legislature, then 



78 IIISTOKY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

in session^ for all necessary legislation for the changes 
contemplated^ and so that Madison University might be 
opened in the second week of January, 1844, at the 
regular time of the opening of the second session of the 
college year. 

The State Legislature enacted all the legal measures 
necessary, and Hanover College reached what seemed to 
be the end of its life. It was a tragic event for Han- 
over. The College was dear to its people. They had 
loved it and cherished it and made great sacrifices for 
it, and devotion to its interests had entered very 
largely into their religious life. The College had in 
turn become inwrought with their business interests, and 
the industry of numbers had been so shaped that their 
support was dependent upon the supplies necessary for 
the College population. The removal of the College 
was not only as the death of one beloved, but one who 
also was a stay and support. The mourning was like 
that of Eachel weeping for her children, and would not 
be comforted because they were not. Dr. Crowe, in his 
manuscript history, speaks of the tears of widows who 
saw in the removal of the College the loss of their 
earthly all. He also speaks of his own agony of heart 
in seeing thus ruthlessly swept away, without any pre- 
vious warning or expectation, the College for which he 
had so labored and had made so great sacrifices, and 
which had accomplished so much good and seemed to be 
just entering upon a bright era of prosperity. 

If Madison University could in its beginning have 
realized the ideal of President McMasters, and, as- 
Minerva from the brain of Jove, in full stature and 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 79 

complete panoply, could at once have entered into a 
complete equipment of buildings and libraries and en- 
dowments, doubtless every friend and supporter of Han- 
over would have rejoiced in the new University and in 
the transfer to it of the reputation and honor of Han- 
over and whatever of material possessions it held. But 
to destroy that which had been built up in faith and 
prayer and with self-sacrifice, and which had survived 
threatening perils, had accomplished untold good and 
was full of promise, and to attempt to realize a high 
ideal upon a foundation more inadequate than that 
which was abandoned, and to build up with iridescent 
verbal promises an institution whose fame should go 
through all the Central West, seemed not only unwise, 
but heart-rending and ruinous. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The charter of Hanover College was surrendered to 
the State Legislature just at the commencement of the 
two weeks^ recess at Christmas, and, the charter for the 
Madison University having been secured, arrangements 
were made for opening the following term at Madison. 
Professors Hynes and Sturgus and Eckstein, a new Pro- 
fessor of Modern Languages, knew nothing whatever of 
the proposed change of location until the astounding 
report of it was brought to Hanover. Though against 
their will and wishes, there seemed nothing else for 
them to do but to go into the new locality to which their 
chairs had been carried. 

The College building at Hanover was, by the enact- 
ment of the Legislature, sold at public sale. Dr. Crowe 
bidding ten dollars, and no one bidding against him, it 
was sold to him at that price, subject to the lien of the 
church upon it. At the same time that the session of 
the Madison University was opened, he, with his eldest 
son, who was a graduate of the College, opened a class- 
ical and mathematical academy in the old College build- 
ing. This was done at the very urgent solicitation of 
the session of the church and of the citizens of Hanover 
and vicinity, in hope that in some way this might lead to 
the restoration of the College. In a short time forty 
students were in attendance in the academy, a number 
of them students who had been in the College classes. 



HISTORY OF HAXOVER COLLEGE. 81 

Difficulties arose in the way of the institution at Mad- 
ison. The surronndings of the students in the city, 
with its restaurants, saloons and enticements to evil, 
were not so favorable to study and good order as the 
quiet and moral and religious influences of a secluded 
village. Those who wished to improve their time and 
opportunities could not accomplish their work, and those 
who could be led astray were enticed into ways of evil 
that were prepared for them. The Professors became 
dissatisfied, the surroundings and the baleful influences 
blighting their work and the lives of the students com- 
mitted to their care. Professor Anderson soon resigned 
and withdrew. Professors Hynes and Sturgus and S. 
Harrison Thompson, who was elected at the opening of 
the term, resigned before the end of the spring term of 
three months, and gave notice that they would withdraw 
at the end of the term. Two weeks before the close of 
the session of the University, at a regular session of one 
of the literary societies, the Philalathean, the subject of 
a return to Hanover was brought up, and so general was 
the feeling of dissatisfaction with their circumstances 
and prospects that a resolution was proposed and passed 
unanimously to return forthwith to Hanover. And next 
day they loaded their furniture and library of sixteen 
hundred volumes into wagons, and the society in a body 
went to Hanover. Their arrival in Hanover was a gTeat 
surprise. Their coming was hailed with delight, and 
they were received with the greatest cordiality. They 
expressed their determination to have nothing more to 
do with Madison X^niversity, and requested permission 
to occupy their old hall in the College building and to 



82 HISTORY OF HAA^OVER COLLEGE. 

hold their spring exhibition in the College chapel. Their 
request was granted, and with their presence it seemed 
as if the College might come to life again. 

Dr. Crowe had been strongly nrged to undertake the 
work of re-establishing the College. Providential events 
seemed to indicate to him that that was the way of duty. 
Without any solicitation or knowledge of the friends of 
Hanover, at the time when the charter of the College 
was surrendered to the Legislature and a charter for the 
Madison LTniversity was granted, by the action and in- 
fluence of two members of the Legislature, John S. Si- 
monson, of Clarke county, and Henry Lee, of Jefferson 
count}?", an amendment was made to the bill that was 
about to pass, reviving the original charter of 1829 for 
Hanover Academy. The amendment was carried and 
the charter of 1829 restored. Thus, without thought or 
solicitation on the part of those specially interested, was 
a legal foundation laid for the re-establishment of the 
College if providential events favored it. A number of 
ministers from different parts of the State had written 
to Dr. Crowe, urging him to undertake the work. The 
course of events at Madison, the resignation of the Pro- 
fessors of the University, and the return of the Phila- 
lathean Literary Society to Hanover, indicated that the 
way was opening for the work of reorganizing the Col- 
lege, not as a close corporation, but what it was orig- 
inally intended to be — a college of the church. 

Dr. Crowe began his work by soliciting in Hanover 
and vicinity for the support of three Professors for two 
years. He accomplished this without any difficulty. Two 
of these subscriptions were for four hundred dollars each. 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 83 

Overtures were made to Professors Hynes, Sturgus and 
Thompson for their services. Professor Hynes declined 
to accept a professorship, as he wished to devote himself 
to the work of the ministry, but he favored the move- 
ment, and would give daily instruction a portion of his 
time. Professors SturgTis and Thompson agreed to ac- 
cept. A meeting was then called for April 6 for organ- 
ization as a corporate body under the charter for the 
Hanover Academy approved January 6, 1829, and re- 
vived and approved January 15, 1844. The organiza- 
tion was effected, and the following persons became 
trustees: John Finley Crowe, Tilly H. Brown, Wil- 
liamson Dunn, George Logan, William Eeed, John M. 
Young, Eobert Simonson, Jacob Haas and John D. 
Smock. After organization Eev. James M. Henderson, 
Eev. James A. McKee, Eev. David Lattimore and Eev. 
Thomas W. Hynes were elected additional members. 
Mr. Hynes, being present, took his seat. The following 
appointments were made as Professors: Eev. John 
Finley Crowe, D. D., Principal and Professor of History, 
Logic, Ehetoric and Political Economy; Minard Stur- 
gus, A. M., Professor of the Greek and Latin Languages ; 
Samuel Harrison Thompson, A. M., Professor of Mathe- 
matics and the Natural Sciences; Frederick Eckstein, 
Professor of the French and German Languages and of 
Drawing. The sessions were to open the first Mondays 
of May, September and March. Thus was prepared the 
opening again of Hanover Academy, with the expecta- 
tion of its soon becoming once more Hanover College. 
The next week Madison Presb3^tery met, and April 11 



84 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

adopted, with but one dissenting voice, the following 
resolution : 

"Resolved, That this Presbytery deeply regrets the 
surrender of the charter of Hanover College ; that we 
heartily approve of the efforts of its worthy founder and 
former friends to continue and build up again a school 
of the prophets at Hanover, and that we cordially rec- 
ommend said school to the prayers and sympathies of 
our churches/' 

About the same time a similar resolution was adopted 
unanimously by the Presbytery of Crawfordsville, indi- 
cating a widespread interest in behalf of Hanover. On 
the first day of May, 1841, the institution was opened 
with the most flattering prospects of success. At the 
meeting of the board preceding the commencement, a 
greater number of students was reported as in attend- 
ance than had been for several 3^ears before, with one 
exception. 

At the meeting of the Synod of Indiana at New Al- 
bany early in October, 1844, Dr. McMaster presented a 
communication from the president of the board of trus- 
4ees of Madison Universit}'', containing an authenticated 
copy of the act of the Legislature creating that corpora- 
tion, which act provided that the Synod of Indiana 
should have power to appoint one-half of the trustees, 
together with a summary statement of the organization 
of the board, the establishment of a college for general 
academical instruction in the University, and the con- 
dition, design and prospects of the school. Dr. Mc- 
Masters availed himself of the occasion in presenting 
these papers to make a long and elaborate speech in 



HISTORY OF HAXOVER COLLEGE. 85 

justification of himself and coadjutors in the destruc- 
tion of Hanover College for the purpose of building up 
a larger and more efficient institution. A motion was 
made at the close of his speech that the Synod adopt 
Madison University as their school and unite with the 
board of trustees, according to the provisions of the 
charter, in its superintendence and control. After a 
protracted discussion the motion was lost. There was 
then presented to the Synod a memorial paper, setting 
forth the organization and history of Hanover Academy 
and College and their relation to the Synod and of the 
Synod to them, and also setting forth the facts in the 
removal of the College to Madison, the surrender of its 
charter, and the organization of Madison University, 
the re-enactment by the Legislature of the charter of 
Hanover Academy, what had been accomplished for the 
rebuilding of Hanover College, the assurance they had 
of obtaining a new charter for the College, and a de- 
termination to rebuild the College, which had accom- 
plished so much, for which so much of sacrifice had been 
made, which had the sympathy and favor of so many 
ardent friends, and for which the prospects were so 
promising. And the Synod was asked again to adopt 
the College as its own. The assurance was given that 
its board of trustees would no longer be a close corpora- 
tion, electing their own members, but that the Synod 
should have a direct agency in its management b}^ their 
own election of trustees of the board. Provision for 
this would be made in the new charter which was to be 
obtained from the Legislature of the State, soon to meet. 
The S3mod, by an overwhelming majority, decided to 



86 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

resuscitate their College, adopting Hanover Academy in 
the meanwhile as their Synodical school. And inas- 
much as in the surrender of the charter of the College 
Hanover had been declared to be an unsuitable place 
for the College, a committee was appointed to examine 
the whole field and report at the next meeting of the 
Synod in favor of such place as they might judge most 
favorable to the interests of the church and prosperity 
of the College. At the next meeting of the Synod the 
following year, at Vincennes, the committee reported in 
favor of Hanover. Before this meeting of the Synod at 
Vincennes tJie new charter had been obtained for the 
College without any opposition, and much more liberal 
and desirable than the one that had been surrendered. 

After the Synod at 'New Albany had refused to accept 
participation in the control of the Madison University 
and to pledge it the patronage of the Synod, Dr. Mc- 
Masters accepted the presidency of Miami University, 
and the Madison enterprise was abandoned. Thus Han- 
over had the field again as the college of the Old School 
Presbyterian Church, with the sympathies of the Synod 
and its patronage and help pledged to it. The work of 
establishing the College had to be begun anew. There 
was a good name, which was of great value, but no per- 
manent funds, an essential factor in building up a col- 
lege. There was a college building, but not an adequate 
one. And the equipment of library and apparatus was 
entirely wanting. What had previously belonged to the 
College had, with everything else, been transferred to 
Madison University. But with willing hands and glad 
hearts the long and arduous work of re-establishing the 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 87 

College was undertaken. The catalogue of 1845 was 
one which, under the circumstances^, was luminous with 
hope. There were eighty-one students. The great ma- 
jority of them were from a distance. Sixteen were from 
the village and neighborhood; the balance were from 
nine different States. Forty-six were from Indiana, 
sixteen from Kentucky, nine from Mississippi, and the 
remainder from six other States. 

The Eev. Dr. Sylvester Scovel, of IN'ew Albany, was, 
in August, 1846, unanimously elected President. Dr. 
Scovel had been for some years District Secretary of the 
Board of Domestic Missions. He was a Christian gen- 
tleman of vigor and energy, whose praise was in all the 
churches. His executive and financial abilities fitted 
him especially for the wants of the College at this 
period. Under his administration the College paid its 
way. He secured in a short time a very excellent though 
comparatively small library, and began the work of 
gathering a permanent endowment fund. The follow- 
ing action of the Synod of Indiana, which met at Craw- 
fordsville, October 14, 1847, throws light upon the 
history of the College during the first year of Dr. 
ScoveFs administration : 

''Resolved, First, that this Synod does rejoice in the 
prosperity of Hanover College, in the increasing num- 
ber of its students, in the success that has attended the 
efforts that have been made to secure funds for its en- 
dowment, but especially in the divine favor shown to it 
in the conversion of more than forty of its pupils to God 
during the past year. 

''Resolved, Second, that in the judgment of this Synod 



88 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

the success of the past year ought to be regarded, as a 
call from God to take courage and go forward, assured 
of success in time to come. 

"Resolved, Third, that Synod respectfully suggests to 
the board of trustees the importance of covering the 
whole field just now with a vigorous and efficient agency, 
and asks that the agents of the board be encouraged in 
all our churches. 

''Resolved, Fourth, that inasmuch as the Synod has 
heard with pleasure of the willingness of the Northern 
Synod of Indiana to cooperate with this Synod in build- 
ing up a Presbyterian College for the West, this Synod, 
cordially invites said cooperation, and further requests 
the trustees of the College to submit to said Synod such 
terms of union as in their wisdom may appear just and 
equal.^^ 

The Synod of Northern Indiana had been organized 
by the G-eneral Assembly of 1843. It held its first 
meeting in October, 1843, at Fort Wayne. It at first 
consisted of the Presbyteries of Logansport and Lake 
Michigan, extending but little south of the Wabash, 
although northward without bounds, embracing all of 
the few Old School churches in Michigan. Later it ex- 
tended as far south as Indianapolis, and its growth and 
development was of the utmost importance to the Col- 
lege. At the annual meeting of the trustees of the 
College in August, 1848, a communication to the board 
from the Northern Synod of Indiana was submitted to 
them, asking the privilege of taking part in the work of 
building up the College. This communication was re- 
ferred to a special committee that reported as follows : 



'HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE, 89 

"Your committee have had under consideration the 
proposition of Northern Indiana to aid in rearing the 
College, and to be allowed the privilege of appointing 
one trustee of the board ; and finding from an examina- 
tion of the charter of Hanover College that said charter 
restricts the appointment of trustees to the Synod of 
Indiana conjointly with this board exclusively; and 
whereas this board is desirous to reciprocate the kind 
regard of the Synod of N"orthern Indiana, and to give 
her a share in the government of this institution, the 
committee therefore recommends the adoption of the 
following resolution: 

''Resolved, unanimously. That the Synod of Northern 
Indiana be invited to nominate, at its next annual ses- 
sion, one person as a trustee of Hanover College, and 
that this board, at their annual meeting in August next, 
will confirm such nomination/^ 

With this action of the board was sent an explanatory 
statement that by the action taken the Northern Synod 
of Indiana had thereby accorded to it the privilege of 
nominating, every fourth year, a person to be appointed 
trustee, so that there should in all times be in office one 
trustee appointed by said Synod. But at the next an- 
nual meeting of the board, in August, 1849, further and 
more liberal measures were taken for securing to the 
Northern Synod a share in the work and management of 
the College. Measures were adopted to petition the 
Legislature at its coming session for such a change in 
the charter of the College as would give the Northern 
Synod an equal share with the Synod of Indiana on the 
board of trustees. The Legislature made the change. 



90 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

and thereafter the !N"ortherii Synod of Indiana, as long 
as it retained its separate existence as a Synod of the 
Old School chnrch, elected annually two members of the 
board of trustees of Hanover College. 

Until near the close of the college year of 1848 and 
1849 there was marked and general prosperity. The 
College catalogue showed an attendance of one hundred 
and eighty-three. Seventy-four of them were from In- 
diana, thirty from Ohio and Kentucky each ; the balance 
from ten other States. But before the college year 
closed a great calamity befell the College. It was the 
death of its President. The scourge of Asiatic cholera 
swept through the Ohio valley, and the last of June 
appeared at Madison. A student of the College was one 
of its first victims at Hanover. The disease spread 
rapidly. The College was disbanded and the students 
permitted to return home. Dr. Scovel, who had been in 
feeble health for some weeks, was attacked by the dread- 
ful disease on the forenoon of the third day of July, and 
expired at four o'clock in the morning of the fourth of 
July. Three students died, and twenty-two of the citi- 
zens of the village. The death of Dr. Scovel was a very 
sore bereavement and a great loss to the College. But 
though a master workman was taken away, the work was 
not to stop. 

At the annual meeting of the board in August, 1849, 
the Rev. Thomas E. Thomas, of Rossville, Ohio, was 
elected President. Under his administration the Col- 
lege continued to prosper, but not without financial 
difficulties. His administration was especially distin- 
guished by the purchase of what has since been known as 



HISTORY OF HAXOVEE COLLEGE. 91 

the college farm, and the erection of a new College 
building on the high bluff of the farm, overlooking the 
river. It was in October, 1849, that the board deter- 
mined to purchase the farm for the erection of the new 
building in the near future. The farm was half a mile 
east of the old College building. It contained about two 
hundred acres, half of it upon the hillsides, and covered 
with forest trees. The other part of the farm was a 
level plateau, and giving upon the very brow of the hill, 
five hundred feet above the valley and the waters of the 
Ohio, a choice place for buildings and commanding 
views of natural scenery, yielding increasing pleasure 
and delight. Although, however, the place for the new 
College building was chosen, and the College was flour- 
ishing, with a large number of students, yet its financial 
condition was such, notwithstanding the diligent an4 
faithful work of its agents, that not until the spring of 
1852 was a plan for a new edifice adopted, and not until 
a year later was the building committee directed to enter 
into a contract for its erection. And, beginning with an 
insufficiency of funds for the completion of the work, the 
difficulties were greatly enhanced by the discrepancy be- 
tween the estimated cost of the building by the architect 
and the actual cost as the workmen proceeded. It was 
estimated to cost eighteen thousand dollars. The actual 
cost when at length the building was completed was 
more than twice that amount. Before the work was 
completed the contractors were asked to stop their work 
because of the lack of funds. In 1854 Dr. Thomas re- 
signed the Presidency of the College, in order to accept 
the Professorship of Bibliology in the New Albany The- 



92 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

ological Seminary, to which he was at this time elected. 
His resignation was greatly to the regret of the students 
and of the board of trustees. In May, 1855, the Eev. 
Dr. Jonathan Edwards, of Fort Wayne, was elected 
President, and was inaugurated at the succeeding com- 
mencement in August. The College was in financial 
straits because of its new building, and because of ar- 
rears accruing upon Professors' salaries; it had, how- 
ever, the sympathies of the churches of the two Synods, 
and its agents were busy throughout the State in gath- 
ering funds and disposing of scholarships for five and 
ten years of tuition in the College for subscriptions of 
fifty and one hundred dollars to the building fund for 
the new College building. But while these subscrip- 
tions for scholarships helped the building fund, it took 
away from the support of the Professors; for the pay- 
ment of the salaries of the Professors had been mainly 
dependent upon the tuition fees, which had been for 
some years thirty dollars a year. Thus it was that while 
the College was prospering, with a large attendance of 
students, the income for the support of the Professors 
was diminishing, and their salaries were left in arrears. 
In this emergenc}^ the board of trustees and the friends 
of the College determined to secure an endowment fund 
of $100,000, the interest of which only should be used 
for paying Professors' salaries and current expenses. 
In April, 1855, this action of the board was determined 
upon. It was indorsed by the Synods of the State in 
their meetings in October. Agents had access to all the 
churches. Subscriptions were to be taken, payable in 
five or ten years. And these subscriptions were to be- 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 93 

come binding only upon the condition that the whole 
amount of one hundred thousand dollars was subscribed 
in good and reliable obligations. These subscriptions, 
when the}' became binding, gave the makers of them 
scholarships in the College, upon which they could place 
students, who should have their tuition in the College 
free. Interest upon these subscriptions at six per cent, 
per annum was due in advance from the time of the 
announcement that the whole sum of one hundred thou- 
sand dollars had been subscribed. At a meeting of the 
board held at Indianapolis in November, 1856, it was 
announced that one hundred and one thousand two hun- 
dred and ninety eight dollars and fifty-six cents had 
been raised in good and reliable notes and subscriptions. 
It was a matter of great rejoicing that this success had 
been achieved. It inspired new hope and new zeal. 
Eelief was anticipated for the suffering faculty, in the 
payment of whose meager salaries there had been such 
accumulating arrearages. The board also took new 
heart in their building enterprise, and it was determined 
to push the building, if not to completion, to such a 
stage of completion that it would do for occupancy at 
the commencement of the next college year. The sub- 
scriptions, however, that had been made for the College 
were not like funds placed in productive investments; 
nor were they like cash in hand, which could be readily 
invested in productive funds. They were to be collected 
from a wide region of country, and were liable to shrink- 
age from the vicissitudes occurring in the lives of men ; 
from migrations; from losses from disasters from dis- 
eases and death. Likewise, another wave of financial 



94 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

disaster had swept over the whole land^ strewing it with 
financial wrecks, and producing a general stringency in 
money matters. And there was not in the management 
of the affairs of the College that relief from financial 
burdens that had been anticipated. But if there was 
not immediate and full relief, the clouds of discourage- 
ment had in large measure lifted, and there was light all 
around the horizon. At the annual meeting of the 
board in August, 1857, the following paper, presented 
by James M. Ray, of Indianapolis, and seconded by 
Jesse L. Williams, of Fort Wayne, two of the most able 
and honorable elders of the church in the State, was 
unanimously adopted: 

"Whereas^ The trustees of Hanover College have at 
length the pleasure of announcing that the next session 
of the institution will be opened during the approaching 
fall in the new and extensive building erected on the 
beautiful grounds of the corporation, overlooking the 
Ohio river, it appears to be an appropriate occasion for 
the board to invite the renewed cooperation of all the 
friends of the College to effect in the best manner pos- 
sible the benevolent and valuable objects of this insti- 
tution. 

"The board reiterates their united conviction that, 
vital as has been the existence and progress of the Col- 
lege to the training and education of the young men of 
the country, and especially in and from the families of 
Presbyterian churches in Indiana in the past, still more 
needful and valuable is the continuance and enlarge- 
ment of Hanover College for the present and future 
prospects of our youth, both for providing candidates 
for the ministry and for other useful walks of life. 



HISTORY OF HAXOVER COLLEGE. 95 

"The erection of the new and excellent building for 
the College, which is nnequalled, at least in the West, in 
its fitness for the object designed, has cost mnch more 
than was expected, but it is fnllv worth all it will cost. 

"To meet this excess and the accumulating claims to 
the Professors during the raising of the endowment 
fund, it is needful that all additional means necessary 
be contributed for the aid of the College, as well as that 
the subscriptions to the institution in every form be as 
soon as practicable paid, or advanced if not due, that 
the amount thus received may be so invested as to be 
made productive and fully meet the needful current ex- 
penditures for the successful conduct of the College. 
It is the purpose of the board to limit the expenditures 
of the institution to its income. 

"The board therefore request of the two Synods of 
Indiana, of all the members of the churches composing 
these Synods, and of all the friends of sustaining a col- 
lege for the Presbyterian churches in Indiana and in this 
part of the West, the earnest and prompt aid to this 
institution needful for its wants ; and for this purpose 
we solicit the favorable action of the sessions, the Pres- 
byteries and Synods of our church in this State. And 
in connection with this request the board express their 
unanimous and decided determination, on their own be- 
half and that of all the friends of the College, that the 
progress of Hanover College shall henceforth be onward, 
and only onward, perpetually.^^ 

The entrance into the new College building marked a 
new era in the history of the College. Its course since 
has been onward and continuously onward, though not 



96 HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 

without difficulties and struggles because of poverty. 
But through all its straits and distresses it has pressed 
on steadily in the achievement of its noble work in 
higher Christian education, attaining gradually better 
equipment;, larger endowment and established perma- 
nency. Its history subsequent to its occupancy of its 
new building can only be briefly indicated here. Dr. 
Edwards, after two years in the Presidency, was called 
to the pastorate of the West Arch Street Church, Phila- 
delphia, and accepted. The Rev. Dr. James Wood, 
Associate Corresponding Secretary of the Board of Edu- 
cation of the Presbyterian Church, was elected President 
in April, 1859, and continued in office through the 
troublous times of our great civil war and until ISTovem- 
ber, 1866. Under him the College was strengthened 
financially, and received its first large individual gifts 
for equipment and endowment. Dr. Gr. W. Archibald 
succeeded Dr. Woods. He had been pastor for a number 
of years of the First Church of Madison, but had been 
called from it to the pastorate of the Westminster 
Church of New York City. He continued President for 
two years, when, having been elected by the Presbyterian 
General Assembly Professor of Theology in the Danville 
Theological Seminary, he resigned the Presidency of the 
College to enter upon the new duties to which the Gen- 
eral Assembly of the church had called him. The Rev. 
Dr. George C. Heckman, pastor of the State Street 
Church, Albany, New York, was elected in July, 1870, 
to succeed Dr. Archibald. He accepted, and continued 
in the Presidency until July, 1879. He had been pastor 
of the Third Church of Indianapolis before he went to 



HISTORY OF HANOVER COLLEGE. 97 

Albany, and was familiar with the affairs and history of 
Hanover College. Under his administration the larger 
part of the gifts of Mrs. Lapsle}^, aggregating fifty thou- 
sand dollars, came to the College, thongh a goodly por- 
tion of this amount was given under the administration 
of Dr. Woods. A bad investment of college funds by 
the Treasurer, E. J. Whitney, a banker of Madison, be- 
came the cause of the resignation of Dr. Heckman in 
1879. The income of the College was so reduced that it 
was necessary to reduce the salaries of President and 
Professors, and Dr. Heckman resigned for want of ade- 
quate support for his family. The income of the Col- 
lege was reduced for some years, but the principal of the 
funds invested unwisely for the College, though advan- 
tageously for the Treasurer, was restored to the College 
after long protracted litigation. Under Dr. Heckman^s 
administration the President's house was built, a beauti- 
ful and commodious mansion and ornament to the 
grounds. The present President, the Eev. Dr. Daniel 
W. Fisher, succeeded Dr. Heckman. He was elected in 
July, 1879, and inaugurated September 2, 1880. With 
his incumbency came co-education. The progress of 
the College since can not be better indicated than by a 
statement from the Hanover Journal of October, 1900, 
prefacing the proposal of another forward movement for 
securing a twentieth century fund of one hundred thou- 
sand dollars for further endowment and equipment of 
the College. The extract is : 

"For these many years Hanover College has not failed 
in any of her attempts to add to her outfit for her work. 
Sometimes the goal has been reached quickly, and again 



98 HISTORY OF HANOVEE COLLEGE. 

there has been long delay, but always it has been at- 
tained. One after another the Y. M. C. A. Building, 
College Point House, Music Hall, the Observatory, the 
Gi-ymnasium, Science Hall, the repairs and improve- 
ments of Classic Hall — the old main building — have 
come. During the period covered by these additions to 
the buildings, not less than one hundred thousand dol- 
lars have also been added to the endowment funds, and 
many minor improvements have been made.^^ 

These brief statements respecting the history of the 
College subsequent to 1857, give verification to the words 
of the determined purpose and confident prediction of 
the grand men and noble friends of the College of that 
day, "the progress of Hanover College shall henceforth 
be onward, and only onward, perpetually.^^ 



